Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives Contents 6 Filmography 12 Introduction Tatjana Ljujic, Peter Kramer and Richard Daniels 20 Philippe D Mather A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: The Influence of Look Magazine on Stanley Kubrick's Career as a Filmmaker 48 Peter Krämer "Complete total final annihilating artistic control": Stanley Kubrick and Post-war Hollywood 62 Nathan Abrams An Alternative New York Jewish Intellectual: Stanley Kubrick's Cultural Critique 80 Richard Daniels Selling the War Film: Syd Stogel and the Paths of Glory Press Files 98 Fiona Radford Having His Cake and Eating It Too: Stanley Kubrick and Spartacus 116 KarynStuckey Re-Writing Nabokov's Lolita: Kubrick, the Creative Adaptor 136 Daniel Biltereyst "A constructive form of censorship": Disciplining Kubrick's Lolita 150 Mick Broderick Reconstructing Strongelove: Outtakes from Kubrick's Cutting Room Floor 308 Pratap Rughani Kubrick's Lens: Dispatches from the Edge 174 Robert Poole 2001: A Space Odyssey and "The Dawn of Man" 198 Regina Peldszus Speculative Systems-. Kubrick's Interaction with the Aerospace Industry during the Production of 2001 218 Peter Kramer "What's it going to be, eh?": Stanley Kubrick's Adaptation of Anthony Burgess',4 Clockwork Orange 236 Tatjana Ljujic Painterly Immediacy in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon 260 Maria Pramaggiore From Thackeray to the Troubles: The Irishness of Barry Lyndon 280 Catriona McAvoy Creating The Shining: Looking Beyond the Myths 326 342 357 376 382 Karen A Ritzenhoff "UK frost can kill palms": Layers of Reality in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket Lucy Scholes and Richard Martin Archived Desires: Eyes Wide Shut Contributors/ Acknowledgements Ja tí 4 ŕ****- tíši- 'iM iM''^<ŕ^i ľil' .» if* j, "'3" 1 'I: .1' LA ■í;'í 3."Vř"' JWW'MT) p.'r- ~ ilr-V r.w ** "» *T V .T- * T žw" ? ACCLAIMED BY CRITICS AROUND THE WORLD AS THE BEST WAR MOVIE EVER MADE .^4 Stanley Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET ý ■■>■ » -pí- f- ^ 4.*^^éi"'^'|ŕí*í*'<í *?f *ŕ- -^--4 f-* S» sf -I iff - Introduction 13 Stanley Kubrick was one of the world's most acclaimed and most influential filmmakers. Celebrated for their striking originality, distinctive style and thematic richness, many of his films have ranked highly in Sight and Sound's, international surveys among critics and directors about the best films of all time,1 and in the Internet Movie Database's users' chart.2 Widely regarded as his single most important achievement, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968T has been named by many filmmakers (James Cameron among them) as an inspiration for their choice of career or as an important influence on particular film projects (including, for example, George Lucas' Star Wars).3 The majority of Kubrick's films continue to be widely seen on DVD and television and during regular theatrical screenings, and they have long been the subject of parodies, homages, quotations and rip-offs in cinema, on television and elsewhere in the arts and popular culture. Many were considerable box office hits during their initial release,4 and, from the beginning, both Kubrick's hits and his flops have attracted a lot of attention from film critics, most of it very positive, although some of the films also gave rise to intense controversies, none more so than A Clockwork Orange, 1971.5 Since the 1960s, the vast amount of journalistic writing about Kubrick and his films has been complemented by a steady stream of scholarly publications so that today he probably is, together with D W Griffith and Alfred Hitchcock, one of the most written-about filmmakers in the world (at least as far as English-language publications are concerned).5 Kubrick himself has become a familiar icon: a bearded man in a raincoat who, it is thought, was a reclusive, obsessive and perfectionist genius. Legends have arisen around this mythical figuie, who is the subject not only of serious books and documentaries but also of jokes, hoaxes and conspiracy tales (some of them in turn made into films).7 Yet, rather untypically, very little of the rich literature about Kubrick is concerned v/ith his private life. The filmmaker always put his work first, not his personality or personal experiences, and most writers have followed his lead, focusing their attention on the films and on what he had to say about them in interviews. Ranging from low-budget noir thrillers to historical and futuristic epics, from war films to erotic dramas, from horror to comedy, the 13 features Kubrick made between the early 1950s and the late 1990s have explored fundamental questions about sexuality and violence, military organisations and combat, male bonding and marriage, human nature and social change. In doing so, Kubrick has produced iconic images (and sounds) representing key events and developments of the twentieth century, including the First World War, the threat of nuclear apocalypse, space exploration, the Vietnam War, the rise of juvenile delinquency and family breakdown. For audiences and scholars alike, an encounter with Kubrick's films has tended to be not just a cinematic delight, but also an opportunity to reflect on the forces that have shaped the modern world (at least in Europe and North America) and indeed, more fundamentally, on the human condition. However, apart from a few important exceptions (such as Vincent LoBrutto's authoritative biography), what is largely missing from such encounters with Kubrick's work is a historical understanding of how the films got made, how they were presented to their initial audiences and how they were received by them.8 Throughout most of his career, Kubrick was involved not only in all aspects of film production but also in the marketing of his films, while closely monitoring their reception as well, and he collected material documenting these different aspects of his work. Slanloy Kubrick analyses a sir":: o( 35mm film from A Ciockworl Om/iriP. 10..-1 ck/1 ^ i Q ' -.'? Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 14 When, eight years after his death in 1999, Kubrick's archive was donated to the University of the Arts London, it was with the understanding that students, scholars and indeed members of the public would be able to use it to learn about the making, marketing and reception of his films, and that young artists would be able to take inspiration from the archive to create new works. The Stanley Kubrick Archive is probably the largest archive of a single filmmaker publicly available. It covers around 800 linear metres worth of shelves at the University Archives and Special Collections Centre. Covering the whole of Kubrick's career from original contact sheets for Look magazine through to advertising designs for Eyes Wide Shut, the Stanley Kubrick Archive contains pre-production materials such as location research photographs, concept artwork and set designs; draft treatments and scripts; materials relating to the physical production process such as continuity reports and lighting plans, props and costumes; correspondence, artwork and publicity materials. The location research for A Clockwork Orange alone is so large that it provides an architectural record of modernist buildings of the early 1970s. The archive is used by a broad range of students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, at the University of the Arts London and by researchers from around the globe. I he strongroom of ;he University otthe Arts London Archive; and Special Collections Centre where the Stanley Kubrick Archive is held. Photographer: Paul Hays. Introduction This book arises out of the work thai scholars from very different backgrounds (ranging from Film Studies and Literary Studies to the History of Science and Space Habitation Design, also including archivists and filmmakers) have been doing in the Stanley Kubrick Archive during the last few years. As a group, our goal has been to offer new perspectives on the filmmaker and his films, based on extensive research in the Stanley Kubrick Archive as well as other archives in the UK, the US and elsewhere. With detailed reference to historical documents, which serve as evidence for the claims we make, we discuss the formative influence of Kubrick's initial work as a photojournalist at Look magazine on his later career; the importance of Kubrick's Jewish background and of the New York cultural milieu in which he moved in the 1940s and 1950s (before be relocated to the UK in the 1960s); the changing film industrial contexts in which he sought financing and distribution for his films (including, to begin with, both short documentaries and features); his working methods as a filmmaker, in particular his reliance on extensive research and collaborative relationships with other people as well as his willingness to make drastic changes to his projects; the wide range of sources he drew on for individual projects (including, in most cases, a source novel); the interventions of censors and film industry self-censorship; the various ways in which he presented himself and his films to the public, often working closely with major Hollywood studios. We also will occasionally refer to the films' reception in the press and by audiences at the time of their initial release. In addition, both through archival research and through the careful analysis of films (and photographs), our work offers new insights into the characters and stories, the themes and style of Kubrick's work. The first three essays in this collection provide surveys of the early stages of his career. Subsequent essays focus on individual films, covering all of his work from Paths of Glory, 1957, his fourth feature, onwards. The remainder of this introduction provides some background information for the subsequent chapters by giving a more detailed outline of Kubrick's life and work (with references to the particular chapters in which certain aspects are discussed in more detail). LEFT Kr. □ ngmal a Photographc- f Si, -V I- Uli r'-- e boxes now he.d a' ol Lha Arts London. David s/inlinei. RIGHT The arr.hivc searchroc where researchers can now act the Stanley Kubiick Archive. PhoLographer: David Vlntiner. Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 16 Introduction 17 I ■111 Kubrick was born in 1928 into a middle class Jewish-American family in New York (on the importance of Kubrick's Jewish background, see Nathan Abrams' chapter in this volume), He became a professional magazine photographer at the age of 17, and for four years he was on the staff of Look magazine. He worked as a member of production teams, contributing pictures for photo-essays aimed at a mass market readership; in doing so, he developed stylistic and thematic preoccupations which he would later return to in his films (see Philippe Mather's chapter). In 1950, he used one of his picture stories from the previous year on the boxer Walter Cartier as the basis for his first, self-financed film, the 16 minute black and white documentary Day of the Fight, released by RKO in 1951. This was followed by three more short documentaries: Flying Padre, 1951, 9 minutes, financed through an advance from RKO: The Seafarers, 1953, 30 minutes, a colour film commissioned by the Seafarers' International Union, and a short film on the World Assembly of Youth for the US State Department, 1952 (title and length unknown). In 1952 Kubrick also worked as a second-unit director for the five-part television drama Mr. Lincoln. While he initiated the first two of the above films, and often took on several credited as well as uncredited roles during the production process (direction, cinematography, script, sound etc.), he was by no means in control of the final product. In 1953, Kubrick found a distributor for his first feature film, the black and white war movie Fear and Desire, which he co-wrote (although he was not credited for this), directed and produced, with funding coming from friends and relatives (see the first of Peter Kramer's two chapters). The film was reasonably well received during its independent release by the art house distributor Joseph Burstyn, but Kubrick later rejected Fear and Desire because it was; in his view, an amateurish piece of work. The recent restoration of Fear and Desire has revealed it to be a beautifully shot, dynamically edited and richly allegorical film. From 1955 to 1999 Kubrick made 12 feature films, all of which were released by the major Hollywood studios. With the exception of tho privately funded Killer's Kiss, 1955, and Lolita, 1962, which was funded by Seven Arts, they were also ail financed by the majors (on Kubrick's relationship with the majors, see Kramer's two chapters). From A Clockwork Orange onwards he worked exclusively with Warner Bros. In all but one of these projects, Kubrick managed to maintain an extremely high level of creative control, the exception being Spartacus, 1960, on which he replaced the director Anthony Mann, having less power and making more compromises than usual (see Fiona Radford's chapter). Apart from Spartacus, Kubrick initiated his own feature film projects, conducted extensive research on the subjects of his films, wrote the scripts or worked closoly with the scriptwriters, acted as his own producer or worked closely with the producer, dominated the set during shooting while also involving himself deeply in all aspects of pre- and post-production. He often worked with friends, family members and people who became regular contributors to his work, and he saw film production as a very fluid, to some extent unpredictable, collaborative process (see especially Catriona McAvoy's chapter). In the early stages of his film career, Kubiick was using his connections with the New York press to promote himself (see Kramer's first chapter). He was always eager to participate in the marketing of his films, which the films' distributors did not object to because the filmmaker's aim was to reach the widest possible audience —and thus to make the maximum amount of money for the companies who financed his work (see the chapters by Mather, Richard Daniels and McAvoy). Despite the apparent diversity of Kubrick's films, they fall into clearly delineated categories. The most prominent of these concerns films about military organisation and combat: Fear and Desire, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964, the first part of Barry Lyndon, 1975, and Full Metal Jacket, 1987 (on military themes in Kubrick's films, see the chapters by Abrams, Daniels, Radford, Mick Broderick, Tatjana Ljujic, Karen Ritzenhoff and Pratap Rughani). Another category is constituted by films about urban crime: Killers Kiss, The Killing, 1956, and A Clockwork Orange (see Kramer's two chapters). Then there are films about disintegrating marriages (or marriage-like relationships): Lolita, 1962, the second part of Barry Lyndon, The Shining. 1980, and Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 (see the chapters by Abrams, Karyn Stuckey, Daniel Biltereyst, Ljujic, Maria Pramaggiore as well as Lucy Scholes and Richard Martin; also see Radford's discussion of the development of the central love story in Spartacus). Finally, cutting across the above categories there is what we might call Kubrick's Science Fiction trilogy: Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockv/ork Orange (see the chapters by Abrams, Broderick, Robert Poole and Regina Peldszus as well as Kramer's second chapter; some of these chapters explore the close links between these three films). With regards to the focus of several Kubrick films on failing marriages (also an important subplot of The Killing), it is perhaps worth noting that in private the filmmaker was certainly committed to the institution of marriage, being a married man for most of his life. Not yet 20 years old, he wed his first wife Toba Metz in 1948; then in 1955 he married Ruth Sobotka and, in 1957, Christiane Harlan, with whom he stayed for the rest of his life. What is more, he raised three daughters with Christiane (one of them from her firsl marriage). These biographical facts about the importance of females in Kubrick's private life provide a useful counterpoint to the tendency (especially perhaps among male critics) to concentrate all too narrowly on the men in Kubrick's films and on his male collaborators. There is a lot to be said about his female collaborators, including family members (see McAvoy's chapter), and the female characters in his films (see the chapters by Radford, Stuckey, Biltereyst, Ljujic, Ritzenhoff as well as Scholes and Martin). This is not to deny that there is an unusually strong male bias in Kubrick's work. Apart from Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss, which are based on original scripts (co-written by Kubrick and Howard Sackler), all of Kubrick's features are based on novels and a novella by male writers (on Kubrick's adaptations see the chapters by Radford, Stuckey, Biltereyst, Pramaggiore, McAvoy, Scholes and Martin as well as Kramer's two chapters). 2001 is a borderline case, insofar as Kubrick collaborated with Arthur C Clarke on both the script and a novel published under Clarke's name in conjunction with the film (see Poole's chapter). The other source texts are: Lionel White, Clean Break (US, 1955); Humphrey Cobb, Paths of Glory (US, 1935); Howard Fast, Spartacus (US, 1951); Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (France, 1955); Peter Bryant, Two Hours to Doom (UK, 1958; published as Red Alert in the US); Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (UK, 1962); William Makepeace Thackeray, Barry Lyndon (UK, 1844/56); Stephen King, The Shining (US, 1977); Gustav Hasford, The Short-Timers (US, 1979); Arthur Schnitzler, Traumnovelle (Austria, 1926). The novels (and the novella) Kubrick adapted range from nineteenth century and early twentieth century classics to contemporary genre fiction, from historical novels to erotic stories, thrillers, horror and science fiction. In addition to the text he adapted, Kubrick also made use of Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 18 Introduction 19 a wide range of other sources in the development of his films, including, for example, non-fiction books, scholarly articles, paintings, as well as exchanges with historians, engineers and scientists (see the chapters by Radford, Poole, Peldszus, Ljujic, Pramaggicre and McAvoy), Kubrick was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure the historical and scientific accuracy of his films, yet, rather than seeing this as an end in itself, he did so with the intention of facilitating the viewer's sensual and emotional engagement in the world depicted on the screen (see especially Ljujic's chapter). A perhaps somewhat underrated consequence of his eagerness to engage audiences is the (often wicked) humour of his work (see the chapters by Abrams, Stuckey and Broderick). in addition to his 13 feature films, Kubrick worked on numerous projects which in the end he did not realise. The three most famous of these are the Napoleon biopic that occupied much of his time in the late 1960s and early 1970s (some of his preparations for this project eventually fed into Barry Lyndon; see Ljujic's chapter and Kramer's second chapter);9 an adaptation of Brian Aldiss' short story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long", 1969, which Kubrick developed across much of the 1980s and 1990s, and which eventually was made by his friend Steven Spielberg as A.I. Artificial Intelligence, 2001;10 and an adaptation of Louis Begley's Holocaust novel Wartime Lies, 1991, which Kubrick worked on in the early 1990s under the title Aryan Papers.11 Among the many other unfinished projects, it is perhaps worth mentioning an untitled treatment from around 1960, which dealt with the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Holland.12 While Kubrick is usually identified as an American filmmaker, a look at the source material he used, the subject matter he covered and the locations where he shot his films quickly reveals this to be a simplification. Much of his work as a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker was indeed focused on the United States, especially New York, and most of his initial film collaborators were high school friends and acquaintances from this city which also provided an intellectually and artistically vibrant background for his work (see the chapters by Mather and Abrams as well as Kramer's first chapter). New York was the setting of his second feature film and the location where this film was shot. However, his first feature had been shot in California and set in an unidentified war which clearly evoked the European theatre of war in the Second World War, and Paths of Glory was set at the Franco-German front ot the First World War and shot in Germany (see Daniels' chapter). Spartacus was set in Ancient Rome and partly shot in Spain. From Lolita onwards, all of Kubrick's films were made in the UK, with some location shooting, often by second units, in a range of other countries (see especially Pramaggiore's and McAvoy's chapters). Indeed, during the shooting of 200f he and his family permanently moved to the UK. From Spartacus onwards Kubrick frequently worked with British actors (see the chapters by Abrams, Radford and Stuckey), from Lolita onwards his films had largely British crews, and from Dr. Strangelove onwards he was particularly close to British authors who had written the novels he adapted, or worked on treatments and screenplays with him (see the chapters by Poole and Pramaggiore as well as Kramer's second chapter). Indeed, many filmographies identify Kubrick's films after Spartacus as British or as Anglo-American co-productions (also see the discussion of the Irish dimensions of Barry Lyndon in Pramaggiore's chapter}. So it might be best not to characterise Kubrick exclusively as an American filmmaker; he is also a British, an Anglo-American, or simply an international filmmaker. Whatever nationality is assigned to him, Kubrick is highly regarded as a stylist and a technological innovator (see especially the chapters by Peldszus, Ljujic and McAvoy). Yet, arguably, his stylistic choices and technological innovations were mostly employed in the service ot the stories he wanted to tell and the themes he intended to develop. If there is one dominant thematic concern in his films it is the exploration of male violence — in crime and war, in sexual, familial and other personal relationships (for a more extensive discussion of thematic continuities in Kubrick's work, see Kramer's second chapter). On several occasions, this thematic concern generated considerable controversy and caused the intervention of censors, especially where sexual violence {A Clockwork Orange), the conduct of war (Paths of Glory) and sex with inappropriately young girls (Lolita) were concerned (see especially Biltereyst's chapter). Several of Kubrick's films tackled topical issues (the Cold War, the space race, the sexual revolution etc.), in some cases while they were still hotly debated in the media (e.g. Dr. Strangelove and 2001), in others (e.g. Full Metal Jacket) with a few years' delay. At the same time, Kubrick's films raise questions about 'timeless' and in places philosophically or religiously inflected issues: the end of the world, the evolution of humankind, the importance of free will, the nature of war, the relationship between man and machine. Acknowledging both the films' timeliness and their timelessness, the aim of this collection is to locate them within their historical contexts, and thus to encourage and enable readers to experience, and engage with, their aesthetic qualities and thematic complexities in new ways. I Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 22 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 23 n 10 July 1977, former Farm Security Administration photographer Arthur Rothstein wrote a letter to lawyer William Elwood, about establishing the monetary value of Look magazine's unpublished photographs, which were donated to the Library of Congress after Look ceased publication in autumn 1971.1 Along with Henry Luce's Life magazine, Look had been America's most successful large-format general-interest photomagazine since 1937. and Rothstein was its photography department head for 20 years. Rothstein invited Elwood to "note the large number of photographs by Stanley Kubrick who has become one of the most famous film directors. These most certainly have considerable value."2 Rothstein was referring to over 10,400 photographs donated to the Library of Congress taken between 1945 and 1950 by a teenage Kubrick, who had been hired by Look as an apprentice circa April 1946 and was promoted six months later to a full member of the magazine's photographic staff. In hindsight, Rothstein's claim concerning the value of Kubrick's photographs may seem unsurprising, yet it wasn't until the mid-1990s that anyone showed a serious interest in them. Monographs surveying the Bronx-native's film career had typically limited their comments regarding the formative years at Look to one or two paragraphs, in one case devoting more space to Kubrick's passion for chess.3 In 1994. Italian film critic Enrico Ghezzi prefaced the first book to offer reproductions of Kubrick's photographic spreads from Look magazine.4 This was followed by Vincent LoBrutto's 1997 biography of Kubrick, that includes over 20 pages describing many of the key essays photographed by the young photojournalist.5 German art historian Rainer Crone reports having begun his research into the Look photographs in 1993, which led to an initial collection of Kubrick images published in 1999, based on scans from back issues of Look magazine.6 Look's, archives were still not accessible to researchers, although this would change within a few years, particularly as Kubrick's death would compel fans and scholars alike to search far early and lesser known work, thereby ultimately confirming Rothstein's estimation of the photographs' value. The present chapter seeks to further underscore an argument I have made elsewhere regarding the significant impact of Look magazine on Kubrick's development as a visual storyteller.' In light of new materials available at the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London, it is shown that the reciprocal influence between photojournalism and film in the 1940s helps to explain how Kubrick came to master certain photographic and narrative skills and develop particular thematic interests which initially gave his photojournalistic work a distinctive quality and then formed the basis for his work as a filmmaker. I also argue that throughout his career as a filmmaker, Kubrick consistently referred back to certain aspects of his photojournalistic work. To this end, comparative textual analyses of his early films and back issues of Look magazine as well as photographic contact sheets from the Kubrick Archive are featured. The importance of the Kubrick Archive with respect to the above argument may only be properly gauged once the Archive's holdings are compared with those of two other institutions to whom Look magazine donated its photographic records. Starting in the early 1950s, soon after Kubrick had left Look, Cowles Magazines turned to the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) and began donating a collection that "numbers some 200,000 images — negatives, contact PREVIOUS PAGE The young Sianley Kubrick, before becoming a professional sheets, transparencies, and prints — and comprises most of the magazine's New York assignments made between 1938 and 1961".8 This collection includes 132 "jobs" assigned to Stanley Kubrick, representing more than 13,600 archived images. After Look magazine ceased publication with its issue of 19 October 1971, the remainder of its photographic archives were donated to the Library of Congress in Washington DC, representing approximately five million items.9 As indicated "f above, this includes over 10,400 photographs from 102 jobs assigned to Kubrick, mostly outside New York City. In total, these two institutions have roughly 24,000 photographs (either negatives or contact sheets) from Kubrick's Look assignments, although it bears mentioning i that these only represent the surviving and identifiable records. Indeed, no images appear to 4 exist for approximately 100 jobs attributed to Kubrick that are listed in the logbooks held at a the Library of Congress (notebooks that record photographic assignments carried out by staff photographers). Also, photographs for at least three significant jobs assigned to Kubrick and t another Look colleague are impossible to identify due to missing information, usually the name * of the photographer stamped on contact sheets or listed under "Sources for Look pictures" in the f/c magazine itself. While the vast majority of Stanley Kubrick's Look photographs are archived in New York and Washington, a research Inp conducted in June 2011 at the Kubrick Archive in London has «k • revealed that Kubrick kept 259 contact sheets from his youthful work at Look, contradicting a a claim he reportedly made to Rainer Crone sometime before his death on 7 March 1999, about as not having any of the original photographs in his possession.10 These contact sheets contain m over 5,000 images from eight different jobs, with a significant fraction that may be unique to -m the Kubrick Archive, pending further research. A random sampling of 15 contact sheets from six v!\ jobs indicates that 146 out of 376 images appear to be unique, that is. almost 39 per cent of the ■I total. This suggests that the Kubrick Archive may include over 2,000 photographs not available m , elsewhere. Highlights from this sample include images that, while thematicaily and stylistically grounded in the dominant practices of post-war magazine journalism, will be revisited in various ways by Kubrick in his film productions, thereby indicating an enduring influence rather than a a- ;-• mere technical apprenticeship. Look Magazine's Mode of Production of Photo-essays First, a description of Look magazine's mode of production for photo-essays should help to simultaneously indicate Kubrick's level of involvement as a staff photographer, evaluate opportunities for him to learn about all phases of the production process, and identify parallels between photojournalism and film as media that engage in collective forms of authorship.11 In his textbook on photojournalism, first published in 1956, Arthur Rothstein listed six stages in the process of producing a photo-essay, largely based on his experience as Look's technical director of photography.12 These stages include: finding story ideas, conducting background research, ,] developing a shooting script with the photographer, going on location with the writer, selecting pictures for the layout, and writing headlines, text and picture captions. A seventh stage not V mentioned by Rothstein was the preview conference, when a magazine issue could be evaluated 2 prior to receiving its final approval by the top editors. Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 24 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 25 The first stage occulted at the weekly editorial plans board meetings, when ideas for stories were discussed. According to Look magazine historian Gary Cooperman: Suggestions for stories come from staff researchers, writers, photographers, outside agencies, readers — almost anywhere.... The greatest percentage of story drafts which make it this far originated within the magazine's own staff.... In one two-month period, 800 potential stories were discussed here. Of this, 246 were scheduled for follow-up and 200 from this group had been supplied by Look's staff.13 Therefore interested photographers could and did occasionally contribute to this initial conceptual stage of the production process. Once a story was selected and approved by the board, the managing editor would assign a senior editor and a photographer. The second stage concerns the background research which the editor conducted in concert with research assistants. "About five-sixths of a producer's time is spent on preparation for the piece with only one-sixth going for actual writing time."14 The significance of research is also mentioned in Look magazine's own textbook, written in 1945 by executive editor Dan Mich and art director Edwin Eberman; "It is important that you be as thoroughly informed as possible on every aspect of the story before you try to outline it or write a picture-shooting script for it."15 Kubrick is likely to have been supplied with a copy of Look's textbook upon being hired as an apprentice in the spring of 1946. This methodical approach to research, a normal aspect of journalistic work which any news organisation's legal department would appreciate, must have impressed a young Kubrick whose own thoroughness as a filmmaker, in researching the life of Napoleon Bonaparte for instance, would prove legendary.16 The third stage saw the editor and the photographer reviewing the research materials and developing a shooting script: Make your shooting script as detailed as possible. If in doubt about a picture or camera angle, include it. Confer with the photographer about the script and other phases of the story until you are sure that he understands its objectives and planned structure as well as you do.17 This close collaboration between the two main story producers implies that the photographer would have to be well versed in visual storytelling and intimately familiar with the publication's editorial style. It was also understood that the shooting script remained a tentative document, and functioned more as a guide when circumstances in the field required adjustments. Tho photographer was thus expected to remain nimble, and open to creative opportunities. The fourth stage was location shooting. The writer and photographer would travel together to capture the required visual material and to interview subjects. They both "have every opportunity in the field to work according to their own integrity and no editorial dictums are issued. What occurs on location may be entirely different from what was expected and they are free to report as they feel the situation demands."18 Rothstein mentions the importance of coverage, shooting thousands of pictures, as well as including both candid and staged photographs, to provide the art director with an expressive range of options at the editing stage." While reenactments contradict some purist notions of documentary veracity and journalistic ideals of public trust, it was a standard practice to enhance picture situations when desirable, sometimes due to technical limitations, and would have been a welcome opportunity for Kubrick to practise his skills as a budding dramaturge. The fifth stage is editing the story; At this point the photographer may be assigned to another senior editor and another story. However, if at all possible he will stay to help in the preliminary picture editing. The story never really leaves the hands of its creators. The writer and photographer next go over the contact sheets of all pictures and select 60 to 100 which are to be enlarged for possible use in the feature.20 The writer would then work with the art director on a layout. The photographer always had an opportunity to comment on the layout at the subsequent preview stage. Rothstein!s aesthetic principles regarding layout focused on contrasts in scale, tone or subject: "Visual contrast makes the page more interesting to the reader."21 One can read the influence of Russian Constructivism and Soviet film montage theories, and Rothstein's personal copy of Vsevolod Pudovkin's book Film Technique was in fact borrowed and annotated by none other than Stanley Kubrick.22 The sixth and final stage described by Rothstein was the writer's task, draftingthe headlines, text and captions for the photo-essay. However it was also preceded by an important preview conference, in which the layout was put on display with dummy type and temporary headlines in Loot's conference room. The layout was then put on special racks surrounding the room, and "many stories will stay on the wall for weeks before a final decision is made to use or reject the feature".23 The photographer could then suggest changes, and according to Look photographer Douglas Kirkland, "if you don't feel you have gotten a 'fair shake' on a story, you can present reasonable variations which are certainly considered and frequently followed".24 It is important to bear in mind that most of the stages outlined above involved teamwork between the photographer and his fellow staffers, and thus represented a significant mutual influence in the work routine. Some of the results of that influence may be observed in the following illustrations from the Kubrick Archive. Contact Sheets Our first example is a snapshot of photojournalist Weegee (Arthur Fellig) taken in July 1947, on location in New York City during the filming of Jules Dassin's The Naked City. According to biographer Vincent LoBrutto, Weegee had been something of an idol for a teenage Kubrick and his neighbour Marvin Traub, bath fledgling "shutterbugs" who would spend afternoons in Marvin's darkroom.25 For Kubrick to chronicle the photo-essay production process by taking pictures of other photojournalists at work on the same assignment as himself, is in keeping with a growing interest during the post-war period in reflexive practices that point to a self-conscious, modernist f 1 • 1- >*&f! style of discourse rather than an unheightened classical one. Kubrick was also photographed by his colleagues,26 and made a number of self-portraits on the job.27 Look magazine's coverage of a major motion picture production highlights the relationship between the magazine and film industries during the Classical Hollywood period, one that underscores the argument that intermedial processes are an ongoing rather than a periodic phenomenon occurring only in times of change between media. It also helps to remind us that Kubrick's chosen medium of photojournalism can be described as a singular combination of photography and film, and that Kubrick himself was hardly a lone artist who simply outgrew his interest in one medium and switched to another. As media scholars David Thorburn and Henry Jenkins have argued, "the emergence of new media sets in motion a complicated, unpredictable process in which established and infant systems may co-exist for an extended period or in which older media may develop new functions and find new audiences as the emerging technology begins "to occupy the cultural space of its ancestors.... Moreover, in many cases apparently competing media may strengthen or reinforce one another... (revealing) significant hybrid or collaborative forms that often emerge during times of media transition."28 Magazine photojournalism is a case in point, since the photo-essay form which was developed by publications such as Look, Life, Paris-Match and National Geographic, represents a hybrid between documentary photography and narrative film. Photojournalism in such large-format magazines was pulling away from spot news photography and leaning towards the serial quality of comic strips and film storyboards, partly as a strategy to compensate for the absence of movement in still photography and emulate cinema's narrative sequence of images and events. The argument here is that the seeds of Kubrick's transition from photojournalism to film were already present in the unique photographic genre he was practising at Look magazine, and he was by no means the only staff member to show an interest in film, or indeed pursue a career in filmmaking.29 Phatomagazines were thus adopting film-like techniques such as serial photography and cropping successive images to create a zoom-in effect, as well as printing frames from specially modified motion picture cameras (basically the precursor to motor-drives), particularly for their sports features.30 In addition, magazine editors would tap into a popular fascination with the glamour of Hollywood by featuring profiles of movie stars, and Kubrick had several opportunities to photograph film celebrities such as Robert Montgomery, Doris Day, Jane Greer, Montgomery Clift and others. In his profile of Monty Clift, Kubrick caught a moment where the star of Howard Hawks' Red River, released in the autumn of 1948, was playing with the son of actor friend Kevin McCarthy. Both the actor and the photographer are crouched in order to help the reader identify with the boy's perspective, and Gifts expression is meant to mirror Flip McCarthys, thus bridging the gap between child and adult. This imitative behaviour also touches on a theme thai Kubrick will revisit throughout his career, that of the 'Other' as a double, either an actual twin, a sibling or simply a reflection in a mirror, like the Cartier brothers in the "Prizefighter" essay and the Brady sisters in the film The Shining. 1980. In each case, it's an opportunity for a metaphysical self-examination, exploring what Matthew Modine's character in Full Metal Jacket, 1987, refers to as "the duality of Man, the Jungian thing". OPPOSITE Frame from a contact sheet ;eaturmg the photojournalist Weegss seeking a better angle [rom a steplac'rinr, rlirrinrr th* filming of Ju'rs Dassiirs film The Naktd July 1917, New York City. Rubric* would him Weegee 15 years '?fer " "photographer for his film Dr. Sfmngetovp.. OVERLEAF Frame from a contact sheet fealunrig Montgomery Clift imitating young Hip McCarthy's facial expression, connoting a ser.se of wonder about the wot Id around him, in a-i unpublished phofpgraph from March 1949. The phcto-essay on Clift. titled "Glamor Ooy in Dasrgv Pants", appeared in tlis ±9 Julv 194S issue cf A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 31 X The late art historian Petrus Schaesberg noted that "the tension and excitement" of the boxing match became an almost obsessional theme for Kubrick in his early career, as he transitioned from photojournalism to documentary shorts and feature fiction filmmaking: "Kubrick devoted two Look photo-essays to the boxing champions Walter Cartier and Rocky Graziano, made Cartier the subject of his first, 20-minute (sic) documentary, Day of the Fight, 1951, and chose a boxer protagonist for his first (sic) full-length feature, Killer's Kiss, 1955."31 The photo-essay tilled "Prizefighter", published in the 18 January 1949 issue of Look, features the Cartier brothers from Greenwich Village, twins who live together as Vincent helps to manage brother Walter's career as a welterweight boxer. Some of the pictures look like they might involve trick photography, as if we were provided with two different angles of the same individual within a single frame. For instance, Kubrick staged a shot involving chess playing, a game that is both similar to and different from boxing, in that it is non-violent but also allegorises life as a competition for survival, In addition, the players look the same, implying that some of life's battles may be more about challenging oneself than defeating an external enemy. ABOVE Rame from a mi tact sheet, which shows the boxer Waiter Cartier and his twin brother Vincent playing Kubrick's favourite beard game, chess. Due to the uncertain ident:ty of both players, this unpublished photograph from Jiry 1948 underscores the notion that any contest of wills, strength cr intelligence ol.en ends up being a tight with oneself. SK/2/3/6. PhoLugrapher: Stanley Kubrick. OPPOSITE Frame from a contact sheet featuring Waiter Cart'er (wearing a ja:;l fl* i tact pt eatun-g ■I A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 35 V of blurring, provided this was at the service of the photograph's narrative and other qualities. This confirms that the magazine did not adopt a stringent rule regarding photographic defects, allowing other values to make up for an image's weaknesses, and perhaps even recognising a positive 'reality-effect' that came from including such reflexive moments. A playful interest in self-reference appears in many of Kubrick's assignments, such as the photo-essay on boxer Rocky Graziano, whose life was dramatised in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Somebody Up There Likes Me, 1956, by Robert Wise. The magazine essay, titled "He's a Good Boy Now", was published in the 14 February 1950 issue of Look. One unpublished shot features a partial reflection of Kubrick in the mirror as he bounces the flash off the ceiling to give the lighting a more natural look. This contrasts with, say, Weegee's street crime photography, which by necessity had to resort to harsh frontal lighting since it was outdoors and there were no ceilings to use as reflectors. Revealing the photographic apparatus, including artificial sources of light, can potentially distract from an image's message and a photo-essay's narrative and argument. However, intermittent visual references to the photo-essay mode of production could be integrated into a story involving a public personality, for example, whose time was partly spent being interviewed by the media. In the essay "Lady Lecturer Hits the Road", published in the 28 February 1950 issue of Look, a picture on the last spread shows the title character being photographed by a journalist from the Des Moines Tribune, reminding us that we are looking through a camera lens as well, namely Kubrick's. Look would also include the occasional picture of one of their photojournalists in action, either as a portrait of their staff member, or as part of an informational piece on the photo-essay production process itself. Another convention that the narrative photo-essay shared with film was to avoid showing the subjects looking at the camera, since the reader's pleasurable status as an anonymous voyeur might otherwise be compromised. Again, Look would occasionally bend this rule by including one or two characters looking at the camera while the rest minded their own business, introducing an element of humour or self-awareness as the photographer and the reader were unmasked. A good example is the first photograph from the third spread of "Life and Love on the New York Subway": a man sitting on a bench across From Kubrick smiles at the photographer, as the caption informs us that "the wide-awake rider gives camera an l-know-what-you're-up-to grin". Kubrick will revisit such moments in his film The Shining, for instance, when Jack Nicholson gives the camera a disgusted look as he exits the caretaker's bedroom at the Overlook hotel, after having angrily warned his wife not to interfere with his "work". A significant exception to the "don't look at the camera" rule would be formal portraits, provided there is no harm in suspending the narrative's forward momentum at a given point in a photo-essay, One strategy is to begin a celebrity profile with a portrait, after which a story may unfold uninterrupted. It also helps to ensure that the portrait has some inherent visual interest beyond the traditional medium close-up framing. Kubrick's assignment to photograph the famous bandleader Guy Lombardo, published in the 2 August 1949 issue of Look, starts with a full-page portrait of the musician, leaning forward on a chair with elbows on his knees, smiling at the camera. On the floor in front of him is a record player spinning "his latest Decca release", and on his right is a singular black tower of SOO phonograph records stacked on top of each other, perhaps representing all of Lombardo's "singles", looking almost like the monolith from Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 36 Fighter Rocky Graziano and a group of men look at the camera in two posed photographs, engaged in an intriguing bit of mise-en-scene which remains unexplained. They are shown wearing fur coats, bowler hats and riding in a First World War-era automobile. Graziano became a television comedian and film actor after retiring from boxing in 1952, so it may be thai his interest in performance found an early outlet in Kubrick's photojournalistic assignment. The Monty Clift profile, for instance, includes a 'gag pose' of Clift boozing on the floor, allegedly suggested by the actor himself, whose battle with alcoholism would lead to his premature death. Thus Look magazine was not averse to including staged photographs, if if could reveal something of a subject's personality and produce a memorable or otherwise entertaining picture, something which Kubrick would certainly have benefitted from. Analyses of the photographic samples above should begin the job of undermining the conventional assumptions regarding Kubrick's transition from photojournalism to film in the early 50s. The standard account is presented as an apparently straightforward, self-evident teleology whereby a young, talented photographer spends a few years learning how io use a still camera, then progresses to the more advanced medium of film, finally graduating to the most prestigious genre of the feature-length narrative fiction film. Instead of this three-step process, where each medium or genre is kept neatly separate from the other two, we find a series of complex relationships between the photo-essay or photo-story genre, and both documentary and fiction film. It is a form of intermediality in which narrative and rhetorical logic creates a link between photography and film, allowing each medium to adapt the other's work, and where photojournalism demonstrates a specific eagerness in developing print-magazine equivalents to cinema's stylistic devices. The common mistake has been to assume that Kubrick simply took still photographs as if he were an art photographer, a mistake which photographic archives may unwittingly foster due to the fact that fhe magazine spreads are not often present visually to remind us of the images' original intended use. This oversight is understandable, given photojournalism's low ranking on the art scale, and the desire to engage in curatorial exercises (exhibitions, art books, etc.) that take advantage of dominant values in Western aesthetics. Unfortunately, recontextualising Kubrick's work after the fact in this fashion is not only ahistorical and myopic, it may also limit access to the Look magazine photo-essays and thus compromise our growing knowledge and understanding of Kubrickian narrative aesthetics, particularly their origin. Photojournalism's Photo-essay Form A.revealing item from the Stanley Kubrick Archive is a partial collection of back issues of Look magazine, specifically those in which Kubrick's work was published. The collection includes 16 photo-essays removed from the original issues, as well as 12 complete issues on loan to the travelling Stanley Kubrick exhibition.38 The fact that Kubrick bothered to keep these old magazines is compelling evidence that he did not try to repress this formative period in his professional life, OPPOSITE AND ABOVE Frames frcm contact „ sheafs [eaturina: unpublished plmit^rapi.s fum: the Rocky graziano assignment, taken in Autumn ■Iii W 1 WSSm I Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 38 and that he valued the work he accomplished in New York. The existence of the photo-essays in his personal archives further allows us to underscore the relevance of the photojournalistic form in gauging Kubrick's growth as a visual storyteller, rather than limiting our examination of his work to single photographs taken out of context, We can therefore highlight the generic commonalities between photojournalism and film by conducting comparative analyses of Kubrick's photo-essays and his early films in particular. The most obvious link between film (both documentary and fiction) and the photo-story, as opposed to isolated photographs, is narrative. Single photographs may have narrative features, but they cannot compete with the story-teiling potential and impact of dozens of images printed in various sizes, in elaborate two-page layouts measuring 21 x 13.5 inches, accompanied by editorial text and picture captions. Given that narrative concerns are a key aspect of Kubrick's filmic oeuvre, ignoring the photojournalistic influence represents an important methodological oversight. From a stylistic perspective, photography and film share issues of framing and mise-en-scene, with the notable exception of acting. Otherwise, the photo-essay form in the late 1940s consistently strove to find formal equivalences to the most significant differences between photography and film, namely sound and movement.39 What follows are a few examples illustrating Kubrick's ability to transfer his skills as a photographer to the cinematographic medium, The Walter Cartier photo-story begins 'in the middle of things', with a full-page soulful portrait of the boxer waiting patiently with his trainer for the summons to the ring. This is followed on the next page by a flashback to the morning of the same day, as Walter wakes up with his twin brother Vincent. The flashback device can be an effective means of grabbing the reader's attention, by first introducing a dramatic event that makes us wonder what led to the present state of affairs. The 'teaser' in mainstream television dramas functions in a similar way. Kubrick would again avail himself of the flashback structure in Killer's Kiss, The Killing and Lolita, 1962, with a murder (of sorts) linked to the flashback in each case: the mobster Rapallo, the racehorse Red Lightning, and the writer Clare Qu/lty, respectively. The second page of "Prizefighter" continues with a montage of images depicting the boxer's preparations on "the day of a fight", including breakfast, the weigh-in and the physical exam, waiting for a ride to the arena and praying in church. Such descriptive summaries or montage sequences of the protagonist's habitual activities are a common feature of the photo-essay, and serve both didactic and narrative functions. In this case the images help the reader to appreciate the methodical quality of Cartier's preparations, to identify with the main character and build tension leading up to the main event. Similarly, Kubrick's documentary film version of the Walter Cartier story. Day of the Fight, would include montage sequences chronicling the training routine, such as images of Walter being given a rubdown and having his hands taped by his brother. Virtually identical scenes appear in Kubrick's second feature film Killer's Kiss, when boxer Davy Gordon is prepared by his trainer. We might also mention the training of the gladiators in Spartacus, 1960, and the soldiers in Full Metal Jacket, which also use a photojournalistic montage sequence to convey the rigour and physicality of the work involved. Published in the 3 August 1948 issue of Look, "Holiday in Portugal" was Kubrick's major travel essay, and the one time he was sent abroad on assignment. The second spread's first page exemplifies the two main strategies employed by Look's editors. The top half of the page Second page from ihe (jhoio-Bssay tilled "Prizefighter", featuring tiie Cartier twins. SK/2/1/6. Photographer: Stanley Kubrick. Walter sleeps until 9:3« on a day lie's going to fight. In training, he Vuice helps train Walli r i [ vi t in ere ,f [ m i f ir l* ji gets up at 5:30. runs four miles. Twin brother Vincent sleeps on. soft-boiled i Ktf on J tutu* Th u \iin * a ii' ct'l i ' THE DAY OF A FIGHT Cartier sleeps late, eats carefully, ge?s a physical check-up —and goes fo church. ilS, •i ine architecture, » ™?„r» trees, it u.ci "The Cathedral of the Jcronymos, Lisbon, was the next stop on our tour. The largest cathedral in a land of many, it aad huge, vaulted corridors that echoed eerily when we talked." "The countryside was dotted with olive trees and wild geraniums. It seemed to us almost every inch of land was cultivated by hardworking farmers wlifi labor long after dusk." TT-,,- ^» ^^^r^Tir^triil Uuban w filled .■The ^cw.m*^, profusion of flowers and weryu^in«^ lined w walk through it flflWt.i-0tai..i-. t0 Rlfiht.see and shop. "At St, GnurjfK's Fori. wrm-h uvi-r!™>lt!, Lisbon, the Portuguese detcaleil the Moors in the Hulls. V/p sound it full of steep ha tubmen Ik. stairways-and of Lisboans curious about us." 'Mr. and Mrs. E. Poppej mvited uf; to tlier Lisbon, home, beautitullv decorated with Portuguese antiques. There we were served the strong coffee Portueuese drink alter mnals ' Cooks' tour included palaces, bull-fight and village of Nazaré bating pla«*h«ro ch-ir forebears did ce aK"- O.VCn Still help pull in fishing neb;: wnnu>n still line the long beach, washing, watching their children, watching for their men, Here we found real povertv in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 41 jl plerily. this was the nnly place we visii : found people who said, in effect. 'W Dusefor nn'turesV What (In we aelouL of ill »wall« Iis»» is composed somewhat like a family photo-album of American tourists in Lisbon, helping Look's subscribers to identify with the couple's travels. The bottom half offers an aestheticised documentary record of the "ancient Portuguese fishing village" of Nazare, portrayed as both timeless and exotic. The photo-album may be a variation on the montage sequence, in that it offers literal snapshots of various locations visited by the travellers. Similarly, the narratives of Kubrick's films often adopt an episodic structure, meant to illustrate significant moments in the protagonist's journey. The picaresque and violent adventures of Alex in A Clockwork Orange, 1971, and Redmond Barry in Barry Lyndon, 1975, may be considered film versions of the travel photo-album, especially when the episodes are brief, aided by a voice-over narration that supplies the information included as captions in the "Holiday in Portugal" photo-essay. In addition, Kubrickian heroes often find themselves at odds with their environment, typically conveyed through wide shots of characters overwhelmed by their surroundings. In the Portugal assignment, this quality is expressed by highly formalised compositions that sharply separate visual planes, making it appear as if the Cooks were not really in Lisbon, and that their likenesses were cut and pasted into the photographs. As for the representation of villagers in Nazare, they tap into romantic notions of primitivism, even though Kubrick himself has written against the concept of the noble savage.40 Nonetheless, from a pictorial perspective, Kubrick did initially engage in the kind of idealised representation of traditional communities that called upon certain photographic techniques to beautify or ennoble the subjects, techniques that he was able to apply and thus demonstrate his proficiency. His second documentary Flying Padre, for instance, includes close-up portraits of senior parishioners from the town of Gallegos, New Mexico, that could have been lifted from his Portugal assignment, and his first feature film, Fear and Desire, includes his first wife Toba Metz as one of three fisherwomen, knee-deep in the river of an unnamed foreign country. OPPOSITE Page from the LooA magazine ABOVE Screenshot fealuring Toba article 'Holiday in Portugal", which documented Metz-Kubrick (lall) whe appears briefly Janet and Urll Cook's $1,000 holiday, as a i is Ii er worn an in her husband's fiisl phoiaeraohsd on lor^lun In M=v 1 QAP. Fen- ™rf rWi7M 1 q^M SJÍZ A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 43 In light of our emerging knowledge about Kubrick's training at Look magazine and the work he accomplished in the late 1940s, it becomes easier to examine his better known films through a photojournalistic filter, in order to identify moments that reveal a photographic sensibility and thus to evaluate the extent of Look's influence on his identity as a visual storyteller. One visual trope that captures a defining characteristic of the photo-essay is multiple frames within frames, including inset photographs, windows, and mirrors. Indeed, the photomagazine's two-page spread has been defined by Arthur Rothstein as the basic unit of design in a photo-essay: it normally includes several rectangular photographs of various sizes printed in landscape or portrait formats, with each page dominated by a larger picture sometimes printed as a "bleed" picture, that is, extending to any edge of the page for emphasis.41 In addition, the photographs are underlined by captions and separated from each other by interior margins as well as "body copy", that is, the editorial text, and the fold between the two facing pages is called the "gutter". This montage of olographs ard text has been compared to film staryboards, and has the virtue o" ig'iliir:ln l; fc "ic sirni ar Lbs n'id diff-ji'j-ioc; spatially rather than temporally, in contrast with the film medium. However, film does have the option of including several elements within the same frame, thus creating its own version of a magazine spread. This is illustrated by a clever composition in Kubrick's second feature Killer's Kiss, when the protagonist Davy answers a call from his uncle George in his apartment. Dominating the frame/spread on "page right" is a medium-shot of Davy, facing the camera as he promises to visit his uncle's farm in Seattle. Meanwhile, his reflection in the mirror reveals an eagerness to ogle attractive neighbour Gloria, seen on "page left" through two windows, much like James Stewart had observed Miss Torso in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window in 1954. As Thomas Allen Nelson observes, this scene combines "a voyeuristic and narcissistic definition of character", yet he also mistakenly states that "Davy watches a mirror reflection of Gloria undressing", when it is only the viewer who watches the reflection; Davy's eyes are focused on the windows off frame,42 Moreover, the mirror's frame is lined with family photos, including a farmhouse and two cows, further multiplying the number of frames within frames and creating a kind of magazine spread. The protagonist's rural background is thus revealed, contained within these small-sized snapshots, while the medium-sized windows hold Davy's potential object of desire, imprisoned as she appears to be behind the window bars. The use of inset photographs in Kubrick's later films, such as The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut, tap into photography's cultural associations with stillness, entrapment, and death.43 Finally, mirrors represent both a self-conscious play on appearances, on the lack of reality of film images, and the aforementioned theme of the double, usually linked in Kubrick's films to the main character's struggle between reason and emotion, a duality that can also be mapped onto the photojournalistic battle between images and words. Marketing Another relevant matter that the Stanley Kubrick Archive sheds light on, concerns the production of promotional materials such as advertisements and publicity stills, activities that Kubrick was usually personally involved in, simultaneously contributing to the myth of the total auteur, and contradicting some romantic notions of art for art's sake. This speaks to his training as a photojournalist since magazine photo-essays often shared two-page spread real estate with advertisements. Moreover, Look was an industry leader in conducting Gallup polls as part of its market research to determine what readers were interested in seeing in their magazine, including young women on the covers and babies and pets inside.44 Kubrick would have been made acutely aware of the medium's marketing tropes, based on their demonstrated success in reaching millions of magazine readers with each issue, knowledge that he would then apply to his career in filmmaking. For instance, even though Kubrick's debut feature Fear and Desire was an allegorical war film, the posters promoting the film included the line "the wolves are breathless about Virginia Leith", referring to the actress who played a non-speaking part and is described as "a strange half-animal girl!"45 Film scholar James Naremore notes that the film "features the perversely sexy scene of the young woman being strapped to a tree and lustfully embraced by the crazed soldier, thus offering titillating Screensiot featuring a p hot o magazine -ifcc menage of images m Kubrick's Killers fCisb, 1955. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 45 .IN'. ' material for art-theatre advertisements. (Predictably, ads for the film emphasised this scene.)"46 A similar approach was adopted for the publicity stills produced for Kubrick's third feature, The Killing, 1956, including several images representing scenes that are not present in the film. It may be that these were deleted scenes, or that the images were simply staged to enhance the film's sensationalism. The film never dramatises a relationship between Sherry (Marie Windsor) and Johnny (Sterling Hayden), even though Sherry does try to charm her way out of a tight spot when she is caught spying, and later lies to her husband George (Elisha Cook Jr) about having been raped bv Johnny, in order to get him to revoal the date of the heist. Such departures from a film's released version were also a common feature in movie story magazines, publications devoted to "fictionisations:' of feature films, and Kubrick would likely have been aware of these practices. Film scholar Adrienne L McLean observes that some of the pictures in these ancillary products of classical Hollywood cinema "exist in the realm of the star text rather than in the narrative or even the film text. The star photos connote their identity as such (rather than as stills depicting narrative action) through framing, posing, lighting, and what Barthes calls aestheticism."47 In other words, the publicity stills fed the film aficionado's desire for movie stars and investment in the star system. In the publicity still opposite, Hayden and Windsor are not only performing an alternate story-line from The Killing (as Johnny and Sherry), they are also fulfilling their function as glamorous movie stars, always available to create a fantasy of heterosexual romance for the benefit of their fans, regardless of the actual roles they play. In contrast, images of Hayden as Johnny observing Nikki (Timothy Carey) firing his rifle at his farm, and Coleen Gray as Johnny's girlfriend Fay making a phone call, look more like standard production stills, except that they also represent scenes thai did not make their way into the finished film. Whether they actually refer to footage left on the cutting room floor or scenes staged for the benefit of the still OPPOSITE Publicity still for The Killing, wi'h Sterling Haycen and Mane .Windsor playing a sevne that does net appear in Ihe film. SK/17/1 /2A ABOVE Publicity stills for The Killing featuring Cciocn Gray and Sterling Hayden with Timothy Carey. SK/1 7/1/2 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 46 Ä Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man photographer, using sets and props from the film, seems impossible to confirm. The only related information at the Kubrick Archive is a "Budget and Weekly Cost Summary" for The Killing, typed on light green paper, indicating that a still cameraman was paid $1,250, renting a still camera cost $300 and the lab processing fees were $700.48 Conclusion It should no longer be possible to think of Kubrick's films without acknowledging that their impact owes something to the journalistic codes of realism he acquired at Look magazine. This chapter has argued that Stanley Kuhrick's indebtedness to his tenure as a photoiournalist from 1946 to 1950, during formative years in the lifespan, is underscored by the presence of back issues of Look magazine in his personal archives, and most tellingly by the mutually compatible qualities of the photo-essay and film media, in terms of their respective substances of expression. One can thus recognise filmic leanings in post-war photomagazines aesthetics that would have provided Kubrick with transferable skills when he began making films at the end of his career at Look. The next step would be to revisit Kubrick's films and identify traces of journalistic tropes and procedures that he had clearly internalised and applied to his new career as a filmmaker. Magazine photojournalism can be understood as a hybrid between documentary photography and narrative film, particularly given Look's, commitment to personal journalism, requiring a character-centred narrative. Moreover, Look's explicit goal was to inform and entertain its readership, which encouraged the editors to adopt a balanced approach between convention and innovation, and between candid and staged imagery. Kubrick's films would reveal an enduring adhesion to documentary techniques such as sharp focus and deep space, as well as thematic tropes such as the double, marital infidelity, and sport as allegory. It has also been pointed out that recognising the value of this comparative analysis must overcome ongoing prejudices suffered by photojournalism, as articulated by American studies scholar Wendy Kozol, writing about Look magazine's main rival; "Life took the photographic language of documentary and refined it into a more commercial language of photojournalism, in which advertising and editorial content complemented each other. As a result, photohistorians have often dismissed photojournalism as a commercial, and, therefore, debased version of documentary."49 It should be clear that such an evaluative stance is a barrier to a productive analysis of Kubrick's work particularly when we consider his professional approach to designing advertisements, including their integration into his own films, often in the form of creative and illuminating product placements. When used judiciously, such ads can in fact contribute to a story's realist tone, and in that sense, Kubrick's succinct expression "real is good, interesting is better", borrowed from the famous theatre director Constantin Stanislavski, is misleading to the extent that it implies a predominantly surreal or non-realistic aesthetic, when the exact opposite is in fact the case.50 Indeed, Kubrick has also often expressed a phobia about anything that might be perceived as "phony", and a commensurate desire to ground all his flights of iancy with a documentary-like attention to detail, primarily as a means to ensure the audience's ability to identify with and believe the fictional world.51 Like the fictional character Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Kubrick left his native land to establish himself as an artist in a different country. In the narrative of Kubrick's life, the critical consensus appears to have associated New York City with magazine journalism and suburban London with cinematic art. If is implied that in order to mature as an independent artist, Kubrick had to escape the strictures of Look's assigned work and commercial modes of story-telling. This essay makes a different argument that we might relate to Stephen Dedalus' concluding diary entry: "I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."52 Joyce's protagonist is, in effect, ultimately acknow I edging the formative influence of his home community in shaping his cieative identity. In Kubrick's case, that community was Look magazine. 7£j3&fl Sill sJSESeSmsSVbS smě Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 50 !n June 1964, a few months after the successful release of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the film's distributor Columbia Pictures offered a two picture deal to Polaris Productions, which was the company of Dr. Strangelove's director, co-writer and producer Stanley Kubrick. In response to Columbia's offer, the thirty-five year old filmmaker wrote a long internal memo in which he rejected almost all stipulations restricting his personal control over the films. He stated with great determination and also a little bit of humour: "I cannot, will not, ever (at least this year) be in a position when I must shoot anything or must change anything, or must cast anyone, because Columbia wants me to, I must have complete total final annihilating artistic control over the picture, subject only to approval of the budget, [and] approval of the two principal players."1 The hyperbolic language of this statement reveals, I think, an awareness on Kubrick's part that he was perhaps going too far with his demands for "annihilating" control, and that his ability to make such demands depended on the commercial success his films continued to achieve ("at least this year"): if they "ever" flopped, he would be in a much weaker negotiating "position". The statement also acknowledges the limits beyond which his control could not reach. As he made his films with other people's money, they, of course, had a say in how much they would give him. and they were entitled to expect returns on their investment, whereby such returns were widely understood to be related to a movie's stars, the casting of whom the money people therefore had every right to be consulted about. Elsewhere in his memo, Kubrick referenced broader trends in Hollywood deal making which backed up his demands in the negotiations with Columbia. First of all, he noted that for leading filmmakers such as George Stevens, Otto Preminger and Fred Zinnemann —who had made some of the biggest hits of the preceding decade (including Giant, 1956, Exodus, 1960, and From Here to Etermtv, 1953) — Hollywood no longer issued a "typical major studio employment-type agreement where thev employ a producer and he is working for the studio".2 Such filmmakers were treated as equal partners rather than as employees, and, having directed the massive hit Spartacus, 1960, Kubrick felt that he deserved the same treatment. He also pointed out that, even before Spartacus, when he had merely been a promising, yet commercially unproven filmmaker, he had worked with fewer restrictions than Columbia wanted to impose now; here he mentioned the agreement with United Artists for Paths of Glory, 1957, his first proper' Hollywood production, with a major star and a substantial budget.3 Thus, in Kubrick's view, the post-war period saw a fundamental shift in the relationship between Hollywood studios and filmmakers, whereby the latter gained more control; how much control they gained depended on the success of their films, but even unproven talent gained some. In this context, Columbia's two picture deal could almost be seen as insulting, and it is no surprise that Kubrick rejected it. A few months later he instead signed a contract with MGM which appears to have given him "total... artistic control", without even imposing stars on the picture, and with what turned out to be a very flexible budget (the original, aheady very high figure of $6 million was eventually adjusted to more than $10 million).4 The outcome was 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968, an unconventional science fiction epic that became one of the highest grossing and most highly regarded films of all tims.5 MGM's generosity with regards both to the budget and to the power it handed over to Kubrick paid off handsomely. PREVIOUS PACE Stanley Kubrick stares ir.Ifcnily at t-,e action as he films a scene for Paths of Glory, 1957. SK/S/H/3/5/3 "Complete total final annihilating artistic control" 51 In this essay I examine the early stages of Kubrick's career, which took him from being a staff photographer at Look magazine in the 1940s via a series of short documentaries in the early 1950s and seven feature films (released between 1953 and 1964) to the point where, in June 1964. he felt that he deserved the same privileges as Hollywood's most successful filmmakers. In doing so, I examine the cost of film production and the strings that are attached to financing arrangements. But I am also interested in the freedom that money can buy for a filmmaker, even — and indeed especially — when he is dealing with the major Hollywood studios. In the first part of this chapter, I briefly summarise developments in Kubrick's career up to 1953, which I have analysed in a recently published essay.6 In subsequent parts of this chapter, I then examine developments from 1953 to 1964 in some detail. Beginnings From the outset of his film career, Kubrick, whose formative professional experiences had been working as a photojournalist for Look, a mass circulation picture magazine, aimed to release his films through the major studios.7 He succeeded with the two documentary shorts Day of the Fight5 and Flying Padre (both released by RKO in 1951) and failed to do so with his first feature, the experimental war movie Fear and Desire (released by arthouse distributor Joseph Burstyn in 1953 after having been rejected by the majors).9 On these films Kubrick worked closely with people he knew privately, notably his school friends Alexander Singer and Howard Sackler (a poet who co-wrote Fear and Desire) as well as Singer's friend Gerald Fried, who was a composer. To save money, Kubrick took on multiple roles on these productions. Kubrick financed the production of Day of the Fight with his own money and with a contribution from his father, a well-off physician. When he sold the film to RKO, the studio agreed to pay for a second short, which became Flying Padre. Kubrick then managed once again to raise private funding (mostly from his uncle Martin Perveler, who was a wealthy drugstore owner) for Fear and Desire, which eventually cost $53,500. Kubrick's investors appear to have lost money on Fear and Desire. Nevertheless, by the summer of 1953, Kubrick announced that he had raised $80,000 for his next film, which he described in an interview as Ja tragic, contemporary love story" set in New York.10 Kubrick assured newspaper readers (and presumably his investors) that this second feature would be much more commercial than Fear and Desire. He also declared that he intended to keep his independence: "I wouldn't take a job with a big company.... When you are independent you can control all the parts of a production."11 From this point onwards, Kubrick's career was a balancing act between maintaining control over his films and securing both financing and substantial returns on investment for what he envisioned to be projects with sufficient audience appeal. Kubrick's ambitions were in line with general developments in the American film industry. The ways in which the major studios put together their release schedules had changed since the 1930s and 1940s, when almost all their films had been made in-house in an assembly-line like fashion by employees on long-term contracts working under the close supervision of a studio executive. After the war, this "producer-unit" system was gradually replaced with the so-called "package-unit" system, whereby a studio picture would be produced by a group of freelancers temporarily brought together for this particular project.13 The freelancers might be hired directly by the studio or by .an independent production company that in turn had a financing and distribution contract with the Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 52 studio.13 In both cases, the production process would be monitored by a studio executive, but not as closely as under the producer-unit system, because key personnel such as stars and directors were now abfe to demand a higher level of control over their work which usually meant less interference from the studio. In addition, a major distributor might pick up a film produced without any studio input (financial or otherwise) at all. This happened with Killer's Kiss. Selling Crime Kubrick's projected $80,000 budget for Killer's Kiss was a pittance when compared to the average cost of a Hollywood movie (which rose from about $1 million in the late 1940s to about $1.5 million in the early 1960s), yet it was still 20 times the average annual salary in the US in the mid-1950s.14 To raise this money, in 1953 Kubrick set up Minotaur Productions, Inc., together with Bronx pharmacist Morris Bousel, who owned half of the company and was the main investor in Kubrick's new movie.15 As with his earlier investors, Kubrick once again made use of personal connections: Bousel was an acquaintance of the Kubrick family. Based on an idea by Kubrick (who drew on his intimate familiarity with the world of boxing and with a wide range of New York locations), the script was written once again by Kubrick and Sackler; whereas on Fear and Desire Sackler had received sole credit for writing, now it was Kubrick's turn.16 This project about an unsuccessful boxer helping, and falling in love with, a taxi dancer who is harassed by her criminal boss and his goons underwent several title changes — "Along Came a Spider", "The Nymph and the Maniac", "Kiss Me, Kill Me" — and was produced during 1954 for a final budget of almost $90,000.17 The cast and crew, which were larger than on Fear and Desire, included two familiar names: Frank Silvera, who had been the only established actor in Fear and Desire, received top billing again as the villain; and Gerald Fried, who had done the music for all of Kubrick's previous theatrical releases, once again was credited for composing and conducting the score. Kubrick himself received credits for story, production, cinematography, direction and editing. Thus in terms of financing, personnel and multi-tasking, there were important continuities between Kubrick's first and second feature. The crucial difference was that, following on from the financial losses of Fear and Desire, Kubrick appears to have thought more carefully about the commercial prospects of his next film. It is impossible to know what kind of market research he conducted, but he most probably read the film industry trade press, notably Variety, and was aware of the proliferation of gritty low-budget urban crime movies (many of which later came to be labelled "film noir") and of the special status that United Artists had as a major studio willing to grant filmmakers unusually high levels of control over the films they made for the company.18 He also might have known that Edward Small, UA's largest supplier of low-budget movies in the $100,000 to $300.000 range, was able to sell a steady stream of Westerns and crime films to the studio throughout the 1950s.19 In any case, Kubrick managed to sell his crime movie to the distributor for a flat fee of $100,000, which meant that he made a profit.20 UA then released the film under the title Killer's Kiss in September 1955. Variety noted its "(f)amiliar plot", blamed the film s deficiencies on Kubrick's multi-tasking and predicted that it "may eke out some bookings as filler on the lower halt" of double bills.21 During its initial American release the film made a loss for United Artists, yef eventually it may have generated some profit for the distributor.22 Tlie final budget for Killer's Kiss. SK/3/2/i Sshadul* of Out of Rrodrasiien of niU»r«8 yrodigtian Vermmml ~~~~—production Mana^r Xlectrieian, App«nt-ica & Qrip« Sound Men Script Cl»rk Performing Talent Contract *. Bit Players Extras Dubbing Costs tew Stock (Picture 4 Sound) Tjbnratorr Costs - D«rel«pipg & Printing fltles & Ostieala etc. iteoording "~ Sound Sffeots, Tapes, Becords, etc* Bacordlng and Mixing Music Musicians Arranging & Orchestration Copyist r* Witon & Cutting Projection Negative Cutting Equipment Rental Cutting Hoora Supplies Travel & Iranaportation .cental of Truck U Station Wagon J:. . Taxi. QaSj, Oil, Repairs3 etc, . . Ouher Fares 4 Deliirery Subsistence ^ Kntertairanant Coste " ^ypduation Studio & Equipment -Tatucfio Rental & Electric ';<.:: Coat and Rental of Sets Cost s-no. cental o£ Props & Gosbum@3 f exntemacs >. tents 1 or Cameras & Gthar . • equipment Lucsiion Reai-:1 a. &r3iuitis& 1,893.5? 2.W5.36 2,687Jt7 tór? „52 . J85.or 3,5Sl.tó H30.00 320.80 t 1,81*6.60 11,195.25 í 3.9SU.S2 600.00 1,72?»ko 58?.98 2,570.96 1,556.* 32.65 I 871.3? 1,169.83 190.27 '•A.75 -•-..-•.38 ». '.75 7,799.01 5,667.3? 7,939.60 lokal 13,OU..35 ii.99U.S2 6,f5.?3 2,231.^9 638,50 20,581.50 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 54 "Complete total final annihilating artistic control" 55 A New Partnership As part of the deal for Killer's Kiss, UA agreed to invest $100,000 in Kubrick's next film.23 By this time, Kubrick had teamed up with James B Harris, who was yet another friend of Alexander Singer's. Harris was the same age as Kubrick, came from a wealthy background and had worked for several years in film and television distribution, but now wanted to move into film production.24 In a later interview, Harris explained the rationale for his partnership with Kubrick: "I told him he needed someone to raise financing, find a good story, professional actors and writers... deal with practical problems, everything from financing to distribution so that Kubrick could be left in peace to create".25 Once the Harris-Kubrick Pictures Corporation had been formed (probably towards the beginning of 1955), the two partners embarked on a flurry of activities, initially focusing on an adaptation of Lionel White's recently published heist novel Clean Break, 1955, which was a promising candidate for becoming the follow-up to Killer's Kiss that United Artists had agreed to invest in. In fact, according to Harris' memories, UA was already in talks with Frank Sinatra about a possible adaptation of Clean Break, yet in the end Harris acquired the movie rights for $10,000.26 That Harris was able to spend this considerable sum of money demonstrates that Kubrick's operations could now draw on greater financial resources, which, it turned out, resulted in him and Harris taking greater risks. It should also he noted that, over the next few years, Harris and Kubrick were always able to work on several projects simultaneously so as to ensure that at least some of them would get financial backing from a major studio or one of the big independent production companies. Most of these projects were adaptations of recent novels, and they mostly dealt with crime, war and/or transgressive sexual relations.27 Another important change arising from Kubrick's partnership with Harris was that, perhaps in response to the perception that both Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss had suffered from weak scripts, Kubrick was now able to spend much more time on the development of those scripts that actually went into production. Interestingly. Kubrick preferred to work with novelists rather than professional scriptwriters, and he tended to work with them, as he had with Sackler, for several projects in a row. Thus, crime writer Jim Thompson, Kubrick's collaborator on the adaptation of Clean Break in spring 1955, fairly steadily worked for Harris-Kubrick Pictures until 1959, co-writing the first draft screenplay of Paths of Glory with Kubrick in the summer of 1956 and then writing both an unproduced script about a safe-cracker and a crime novella that Harris-Kubrick wanted to make into a film.28 The adaptation of Clean Break, which was shot in Los Angeles in November and December 1955 and after several title changes was eventually released by United Artists as The Killing in May 1956, had a final budget of just over $320,000, with $200,000 coming from a bank loan guaranteed by UA, $50,000 from a loan provided by Harris' father and the rest from Harris himself.29 To put these figures in perspective: The input from the Harris family was almost as large as the combined budgets of Kubrick's previous two feature films. In all three cases it was the private wealth of the people he knew that allowed Kubrick to proceed with his productions. Another continuity with his earlier work was the presence of familiar names in the crew, including Alexander Singer, who received an associate producer credit., and Gerald Fried. Yet, in sharp contrast with his first two features, The Killing was Kubrick's first fully professional production, with a large cast and crew including a number of industry veterans such as cinematographer Lucien Ballard. Ballard did not always respond well to the directions given by the young filmmaker, who, following on from the production work he had done up to this point, often acted as if he himself was the cinematographer.30 While Kubrick did not seem to have had similar difficulties relating to his actors, the casting of Sterling Hayden in the lead had serious financial consequences. UA had been willing to double the amount it had originally agreed to invest in the follow-up to Killer's Kiss, yet the company did not consider Hayden to be a big enough star to justify the full budget (hence the need for the Harris family money), and, as if to confirm UA's skepticism, the film did indeed make a substantial loss.31 A Pact with the Devil The decisive issue of star power came up again when Harris-Kubrick submitted their next script, an adaptation of Humphrey Cobb's 1935 novel Paths of Glory about a shocking miscarriage of justice in the French army during the First World War, to United Artists. UA executive Max Youngstein wrote to Harris in October 1956 expressing his doubts about the quality of the script, and demanding that "a really top, top star is obtained" before UA could seriously consider backing the project.32 By this time the financial pressure on Harris and Kubrick was enormous, because The Killing was not recouping its budget at the box office and Harris' personal investment of over $70.000 might therefore turn out to be a complete loss.33 Furthermore, the development and production deal Harris-Kubrick Pictures had entered into with MGM earlier in 1956 had come to an end without the project they were working on — an adaptation, co-written by novelist Calder Wilhngham, of Stefan Zweig's The Burning Secret, a story about an extra-marital affair —actually going into production.34 Harris and Kubrick had initially suggested Paths of Glory to MGM. but the studio had rejected the novel, and they had then decided, possibly in breach of their contract, to work with Jim Thompson on the script of Paths of Glory parallel to their development of The Burning Secret for MGM.35 When UA turned down Kubrick and Thompson's Paths of Glory script in October 1956, Harris-Kubrick Pictures had already sunk several thousand dollars into the project (Thompson had been paid $500 per week), and with considerable debt and no source of income, the partners really needed to act upon Youngstein's demand for the involvement of a major star. Thus, somewhat paradoxically, it was the commercial failure of Harris-Kubrick's low-budget debut feature which forced the company to move into the bigger budget arena of star vehicles.36 In order to attract a major star to one of their projects, Harris-Kubrick needed an attractive script and a certain standing within the film industry. Already during the run-up to the release of The Killing in the spring of 1956, the two partners had taken out ads in the trade press to announce themselves as "the new UA team".37 Once released, the film received some very favourable notices in the general press, with a strong focus on the talent of its young director, who, according to Time, was ''a new boy wonder" comparable to Orson Welles in the early 1940s.38 The New York Herald Tribune described The Killing as "an excellent portrait of a crime, unusually taut, keenly directed and acted, and with a sharp, leanly written script", and in January 1957 the Saturday Review listed The Killing as one of the ten best films of the previous year.39 Throughout November and December 1956, a series of ads appeared in Variety declaring that "The te total final annihilating artistic control" 57 Killing is tailor made for an Oscar".40 In this way, Harris-Kubrick Pictures established itself very quickly as a significant new player in Hollywood, a company that stars might want to work with.41 The partners also made sure that the Paths of Glory script, the first draft of which UA had found wanting, was revised substantially (by Kubrick and Willingham), with two more drafts written between November 1956 and February 1957.42 The main change concerned the character of Colonel Dax, whose role was significantly expanded from what it had been in the first draft (and the novel) while also becoming much more heroic.43 This turned Dax into the central protagonist of the story which previously had been more of an ensemble piece, and the script thus became much more attractive tor a major star. In other words, in dire financial straits Harris and Kubrick needed a star, which in turn required them to transform their script into a star vehicle. Their efforts were successful, because late in 1956 or early in 1957 they made a deal with Kirk Douglas, who had formed his own company Bryna Productions in 1955, releasing films mainly — but not exclusively— through United Artists.44 In its dealings with Bryna and other leading independent production companies, UA was willing to invest in moderately budgeted prestige pictures with little commercial promise, if in return the independent would occasionally deliver a big blockbuster production. When Douglas, who had been impressed by The Killing, read and liked the revised Paths of Glory script, UA was willing to fund the production, although neither Douglas nor the studio seemed to have expected it to make a profit.45 Indeed, in a letter to Arthur Krim at UA Douglas wrote in May 1957 that, apart from his $350,000 salary (which was more than the total budget of The Killing), his main reason for appearing in the film was that he wanted "to build up new creative talent" and felt he could be of "tremendous help" to Harris and to Kubrick, who he described as "a very talented boy".46 A crucial element of Douglas' plan to work with this new talent was a longer term contractual arrangement with Harris-Kubrick Pictures, the terms of which, according to James Harris, were dictated by the star: 'The killer was Harris-Kubrick had to sign a deal with Bryna for five movies... two of which he would be in and three of which he did not have to be in. So we were going to work for Kirk Douglas at this point for our future."47 Paths of Glory was shot in Germany, had a final budget of almost $1 million and, despite disagreements between star and director about the shape the film should take, was released to considerable, but rarely unqualified critical acclaim in December 1957.46 Variety, for example, wrote that "the subject is well-handled and enacted in a series of outstanding characterizations", but was concerned that the film "seems dated and makes for grim screen fare."49 The New York Herald Tribune similarly stated: "It could be argued that Paths of Glory is a negative work from beginning to end." Yel the review concluded: "in its acting and direction it is an outstanding film,"50 Time magazine went as far as including Paths of Glory among its list of the 12 best films of the year.51 And the Saturday Review declared it to be "unquestionably the finest American film of the year."53 The film "just barely broke even", but, as noted earlier, prestige projects such as this one were not really expected to make a profit.53 Both in the run-up to, and in the wake of, the release of Paths of Glory the press paid a lot of attention to Kubrick. A United Artists press release for Pat/75 of Glory prepared the ground by stating that Kubrick was "already considered by many industry veterans to be one of Hollywood's most imaginative and talented directors."54 In December 1957, Newsweek declared him to be "the leading Sterling Haydert rehearsing a sceriH observed by fh* director. SK/7/1/1 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 58 "Complete total final annihilating artistic control" 59 'boy wonder' these days", quoting actor Adolphe Menjou, who had worked with him on Paths of Glory and compared his talent as a director to Chaplin's, while also giving Kubrick a lot of space to hold forth on his filmmaking philosophy: "Feelings are more important than intellect.... People go to the movies in order to have some kind of intensive experience."65 Seven months later, a long article in Esquire described him as "a new star... in Hollywood", "a virtuoso director fit to join the company of such as John Huston, George Stevens, and Elia Kazan,"55 In October 1958, a Kubrick profile in The New York Times Magazine praised his "astonishing movies" and noted the filmmaker's elevation to brandname status: "'Kubrick' has become a new word in the colorful... dictionary of the movie industry."57 He was reported to be working on two projects with leading stars — a Western with Marlon Brando, and a Civil War epic with Gregory Peck —as well as developing adaptations of several novels, including Vladimir Nabokov's recently published and highly controversial bestseller Lolita. In the light of these developments, we can conclude that the two deals Harris-Kubrick Pictures made with United Artists as financier and distributor of Paths of Glory and with Kirk Douglas and Bryna Productions for the services of the film's star, enabled the partners to move close to the very centre of Hollywood's operations. As mentioned in the introduction to this essay, in 1964 Kubrick compared the UA deal for Paths of Glory favourably with the highly restrictive contract Columbia offered to him that year, but he fails to mention that whatever rights he had under the UA contract were severely compromised by his total dependence on the film's star, and, what is more, that these rights were earned by signing an unfavourable multi-picture deal with Bryna Productions, Somewhat paradoxically, then, the partners' financial difficulties in 1956 (deriving from their previous risk-taking on the low-budget The Killing) had led to their involvement in a prestigious medium-budget star vehicle which in turn both prepared them for subsequent big-budget productions and tied them down to a restrictive long-term contract. Fortunately for Kubrick and Harris, the contract with Bryna was not exclusive (they were allowed to work for other companies as well), and they were able to negotiate its termination at the end of 1961 (probably in return for Kubrick doing Douglas a favour on Spartacus; see below).58 Breakthrough Among the numerous film and television projects Harris-Kubrick Pictures was involved in from 1958 to 1961, three stand out because they resulted in major Hollywood releases: One-Eyed Jacks, Spartacus and Lolita. The first two were big-budget star vehicles made by the independent production companies their respective stars had set up (Marlon Brando's Pennebaker and Douglas' Bryna), with tinancing and distribution provided by major studios (Paramount and Universal). On these films Kubrick was in effect a director-for-hire, while the producer-star ran the show.59 On both films directorial duties were divided. Kubrick was the original director for One-Eyed Jacks, working closely with Calder Willingham and Brando on the script and on pre-production from May to November 1953, yet was removed before shooting started; Brando himself took over as director of this $6 million production which was eventually released in 1961.60 On the twice as expensive Spartacus, Kubrick came in as a replacement for the original director Anthony Mann who was fired two weeks into the shoot in February 1959.61 In addition to his directorial duties, Kubrick contributed to script revisions and was involved in post-production until the summer of I960.82 When the film was released in October 1960, Variety praised its "solid dramatic substance, purposeful and intriguingly contrasted character portrayals and... sheer pictorial poetry"; in the reviewer's account Kubrick's direction had to share the limelight with Dalton Trumbo's "remarkably good screenplay" and Douglas' performance in the title role.63 Some of the publicity surrounding the film contrasted Douglas' status as a major star and producer with Kubrick's relative youth and lack of a solid Hollywood track record.64 Nevertheless, it was widely understood that Kubrick deserved a lot of the credit for the enormous success of the film. Spartacus stayed in theatres for two years, and by the beginning of 1963 Variety ranked it ninth in its list of "All-Time Top Film Grossers" in North America with rentals of $14 million: since the beginning of the decade only one film (West Side Story) had earned higher rentals.65 Spartacus was nominated for six Academy Awards (but not in the main categories), winning four.66 It also won the Golden Globe for Best Drama from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and was selected by Time as one of the eight best American films of 1960.6' The success of Spartacus turned Kubrick into a central figure in the American film industry, and must have helped him enormously when it came to making deals for future productions. On Top of the World Most immediately, Kubrick and Harris needed money to make Lolita, a project they had contemplated ever since the novel had been published in the US in August 1958.6B Due to the book's instant success,69 the film rights had been very expensive (in the region ol $100,000), yet Harris-Kubrick had managed to take out an option on the novel.70 From the outset Harris and Kubrick had thought that with this project they might be able to re-assert the kind of control they had had when producing The Killing, but had been unable to maintain thereafter. Their negotiations with United Artists broke down because of what an internal UA memo from January 1959 called their "presumptuous and arrogant demands".71 Similarly, the following year Harris and Kubrick rejected a Warner Bros, offer because "final approval" on most aspects of the production would rest with the studio.72 However, the mere fact that Kubrick had been entrusted with directorial duties on a blockbuster movie appears to have changed his negotiating position. Even before Spartacus was released in October 1960, Harris-Kubrick Pictures finally managed to get financing (but not yet a distribution agreement) for Lolita through a deal with Seven Arts, an important telefilm distribution company which was entering the field of movie production at that time.73 Seven Arts invested about $2 million info this production, and eventually released the film through MGM.74 Seven Arts also agreed to finance Harris-Kubrick Pictures' next project, which the company's annual report, in July 1962, described as "a satirical view of The Bomb".75 For Lolita, Kubrick had cast three well-known actors: James Mason, Shelley Winters and Peter Sellers. In a 1959 interview concerning his status as an "independent" filmmaker, Kubrick had accepted the received wisdom that on any given project an independent producer could only gain sufficient leverage in negotiations with the major studios by getting a star on board early on.76 In an article he published in December 1960, Kubrick argued that in order "to make pictures entirely as one wants to" the most important factor was "having a sufficient length of time", which in turn cost a lot of Kubrick: New Perspectives 60 "Complete total final annihilating artistic control" 81 money, and in order to get that money one needed stars and a distribution deal with a major studio: "So there often is nothing gained by doing without stars and aiming the film at the art houses. Only by using stars and getting the film on the circuits can you buy the time needed to do [the film] justice."77 When considering the "independent" nature of Lolita it is worth remembering that this film, like all of Kubrick's previous productions, was made within the regulatory framework provided by the film industry's own Production Code and by the ratings system of the powerful Catholic Legion of Decency. Although Harris-Kubrick Pictures may have been granted control over their film by Seven Arts, it was clearly understood (and most probably stipulated contractually) that the film would have to get the Production Code Seal of Approval and avoid the Legion's "condemned" rating. Given the subject matter of Nabokov's Lolita (a middle-aged man's sexual relationship with a 12 year old girl) it is easy to see that the long drawn-out script development process (which involved Calder Willingham. Nabokov —who received the sole writing credit —as well as Kubrick and Harris) was highly dependent on input from the regulators so as to ensure their final approval of the finished film.73 Lolita was shot in London so as to take advantage of financial support by the British government for the domestic film industry, and was released in the US in June 1962. While it was much less successful than Spartacus, with rentals of about $4 million it was among the 20 top grossing films of 1962 in the US.79 In numerous ways, Lolita was closely linked to Kubrick's next film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, an adaptation of Peter George's novel Red Alert, 1958 (originally published under the pseudonym Peter Bryant as Two Hours to Doom in the UK). As we have seen, Dr. Strangelove was also, initially, financed by Seven Arts (with a budget of around $2 million)80 and, like Lolita, was shot in Britain and co-starred Peter Sellers. Rather than merely releasing Dr. Strangelove through a major studio, Seven Arts sold the project to Columbia in November 1962.81 The film was released in January 1964, and with rentals of $5 million it became one of the 15 top grossing films of 1964.82 Dr. Strangelove received four Oscar nominations (for Best Picture, Director, Actor and Adapted Screenplay), came out on top of The New York Times list of the best ten films of the year, and was declared the Best-Written American Comedy by the Writers Guild of America (the awards going to the three writers, Kubrick, Peter George and Terry Southern), while also winning Best Direction from the New York Film Critics Association.83 In terms of both commercial performance and critical recognition, Kubrick had truly conquered Hollywood. If we also take into account that during the production of Dr. Strangelove the Harris-Kubrick partnership was amicably dissolved, so that, for the first time since Fear and Desire, on Dr. Strangelove Kubrick received the main producer credit on his own, we can understand how he came to demand "complete total final annihilating artistic control" in his June 1964 comments on the two-picture deal offered by Columbia discussed at the beginning of this essay.84 Conclusion Kubrick's early film career in the 1950s is a useful reminder of a basic fact about the production of films intended to be shown to a paying cinema audience. Even at the level of extremely low-budget, do-it-yourself films (like all the films Kubrick made up to and including Killer's Kiss), this tended to be an expensive enterprise, usually costing multiples of what an average person earned during a whole year. Kubrick was able to make his early films because he could draw on his own savings, and. more importantly, on the wealth and goodwill of relatives, acquaintances and high school friends. Even his first "proper" Hollywood production The Killing was substantially financed by his new friend and business partner James Harris and Harris' family. Somewhat ironically, it was the box office failure of this low-budget debut film of Harris-Kubrick Pictures which encouraged the two partners to venture into the bigger budget arena of star vehicles and to make a disadvantageous deal with Kirk Douglas' production company. As a direct consequence of Douglas' involvement with Paths of Glory, Kubrick then worked as a director-for-hire on Douglas' Spartacus, the enormous success of which established him as an important player in Hollywood. This in turn enabled Kubrick to negotiate with financiers and distributors from a position of strength, so that from then on he could produce medium to big-budget films financed and distributed by the major studios, yet made without much interference from them. Kubrick could only gain this position because, from the very beginnings of his film career, he had engaged in relentless self-promotion in the American press; because his approach to film production was fiscally responsible; and because his aim and — from Spartacus onwards — his ability to reaqh large cinema audiences coincided with the majors' desire to sell as many tickets as possible. As especially Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey demonstrate, commercial success was perfectly compatible with themaiically and/or formally challenging films. While I have not been able to explore Kubrick's work procedures in great detail (his work with Peter Sellers deserves particular attention), I would suggest that even Kubrick — a director with an intense interest in, and strong opinions about, almost all aspects of film production, with diverse skills and a very hands-on approach — is probably best understood not as a dictatorial genius but through his interactions with collaborators.35 Kubrick had fairly long-standing working relationships with several of these collaborators, ranging from school friends Alexander Singer and Howard O Sackler as well as Singer's friends Gerald Fried and James B Harris to the actors Frank Silvera, Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers, and the novelists Jim Thompson and Calder Willingham. In other words, I want to suggest thai Kubrick's role in the making of films was not so much a question of making up his mind and then imposing his decisions on everyone else, but to select collaborators and establish work procedures which were likely to produce results he could not have come up with on his own.86 MW —-—i—*—*-—-j-ťt—^.y.-jj-.i j *■> 1" »■ ť _.__.ŕ...._ir^TJľ[_>ij..'!.Ta_ ■- * Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 64 An Alternative New York Jewish Intellectual 65 We were both New York Jewish intellectuals who wandered the streets of Manhattan in the 1950s; we had existential crises and creative longings. Kubrick expressed his in film; I expressed mine writing about film, including his.1 Robert Kölker They are, or until recently have been, anti-Communist; they are, or until some time ago were, radicals; they have a fondness for ideological speculation; they write literary criticism with a strong social emphasis; [hey revel in polemic: they strive self-consciously to be "brilliant"; and by birth or osmosis, they are Jews.7 Ithough the scholarship surrounding Stanley Kubrick is large and still growing, very few of ^ these studies consider Kubrick's origins and ethnicity and how these impacted on his work. The two published biographies of Kubrick, for example, include no such material,2 This is because it is generally accepted that while he was born a Jew he was not a "Jewish" director. Nor, it is argued, did he insert Jewish characters into his films. Indeed, if Frederic Raphael, who collaborated with Kubrick on the screenplay for Eyes Wide Shut, 1999, is to be believed, Kubrick deliberately removed the Jewish characters that appeared in those texts he adapted.3 In contrast, this chapter will locate Kubrick in a Jewish New York intellectual milieu to show how it influenced his outlook and how his work betrays these roots, developed in the classroom and refined in Greenwich Village in the immediate post-war decades. Born in 1928, Stanley Kubrick lived contemporaneously with that generation of writers, poets, essayists and literary critics who came to be known as the New York Intellectual "Family",4 as well as such 1960s alternative iconoclasts as many in the New Left, Mad magazine, Bob Dylan, the Beats, comedians Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and novelist Joseph Heller.5 This group of Jews, centred on New York, had come to political awareness during the Depression. Their religious/ethnic heritage had a direct and important influence on their work. Marinated in the same urban Jewish culture as the Family and their alternatives, Kubrick's commitments mirrored theirs and through his work he was part of the same debates, A detailed examination of Lolita, 1962, and Dr. Slrangelove or: How / Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964, shows that both films engaged with the same dilemmas and paradoxes as these intellectual New Yorkers for, in theme and style, Lolita and Strangeiove formed a Cold War diptych that explored American domesticity and Cold War foreign policy respectively.6 Consequently, they were two sides of the same coin, cohering into an alternative New York critique, which skewered the key intellectual concerns of the 1950s and early 1960s: suburbia, psychoanalysis, existentialism, Freudianism, intellectual pretension, bohemianism, technology, disarmament and containment. In the first section, I will show in biographical terms and thematic concerns how Kubrick can be located in, and hence was influenced by, the New York Intellectual Family milieu. At the same time I will demonstrate that he was also an outlier, not quite part of their company. In the second section, I deepen and evidence this argument by arguing that in terms of aesthetics and use of satire, Kubrick had more in common with those alternative intellectuals. Consequently, in being unafraid to criticise or dissent from the prevailing ideas, Kubrick fulfilled the function of the critical intellectual perhaps more potently than did the Family's members. Kubrick has never been defined as part of the "Family". This is because he did not keep company with them and hence was not included in their circle. In this way he is comparable to Joseph Heller who refused to characterise himself as a "New York Intellectual".6 When told, "Of course you are", Heller responded: "Not what New York intellectuals mean by 'New York Intellectual'".9 Similarly, although Kubrick never earned the title of '"New York Intellectual", he shared some of those very features which distinguished the Family as described by Howe. While never a radical, like the Family, Kubrick had a fondness for ideological speculation, he was Jewish by birth, he strived self-consciously to be brilliant, he read many of their magazines, and he shared many of the same concerns. Kubrick's education was not dissimilar to that of many Family members, After leaving High School, he enrolled in evening classes at City College, New York.10 Many of the Family, because of Ivy League quota systems designed to bar Jews, had no choice but to attend what became known as the "poor man's Harvard".11 Later, he attended Columbia University, enrolling as a non-matriculating student, unofficially12 attending literature classes given by the likes of Lionel Trilling, Mark Van Doren,13 FW Dupee and Moses Hadas, In other words, he was taught by the first generation of the Family and hence was most likely in the same room as its second generation (such as Podhoretz). Van Doren later gave Kubrick's first feature, Fear and Desire, 1953, a very strong personal endorsement.14 In 1948 Kubrick moved, with his first wife Toba Metz, to Greenwich Village, then the heart of New York intellectual culture.13 There, he immersed himself in a world of self-directed learning, becoming like many of the Family, largely self-taught. After eschewing formal post-high school study, his education came from voracious reading and then viewing, seeing every film he could at the Museum of Modern Art and then everything else he had missed elsewhere.16 As Michael Herr, who collaborated on the screenplay for Full Metal Jacket, 1987, put it: "Stanley never went to college; he was only a stunningly accomplished autodidact, one of those people we may hear about but rarely meet, the almost but not quite legendary Man On Whom Nothing Is Lost."17 Key Family member Dwight Macdonald met Kubrick in 1959, and was impressed by his range: I spent an interesting three hours with Stanley Kubrick, most talented of the younger directors, discussing Whitehead, Kafka, Potemkin. Zen Buddhism, the decline of Western culture, and whether life is worth living anywhere except at the extremes — religious faith or the life of the senses; it was a typical New York conversation.18 Kubrick and the New York Intellectual Family Irving Howe, in his essay "The New York Intellectuals: A Chronicle and A Critique", defined those criteria which demarcated the Family: He later wrote to Kubrick to recall their encounter: "Our three hour session at the Beverly-Wilshire (sic) still clings to memory as echt-Newyork (sic); like two old Etonians chatting in darkest CongD."19 PREVIOUS PAGE Kubrick directing a or. the rooTtops ot h An Alternative New York Jewish Intellectual 67 7allfl Tillage Connecticut tag 30, 1952 Dear Xr, Kubrlcki me 2 &a delighted that you wrote/vhe*. you did, for X wi ^^mai^i to fe*l gpilty - - I rsraemb*red only tha doubt* I had expressed after X saw your fila, mi. wondered whether I hsd&H t&arefes® Bitr©pr§s©at@d jsgr tra© experience, vhidh oa the ■ whole vas very h&pfgy and adairlng. ffee faet i»» xsrohably, that X like it a-rot "better at this distance? X fcnov X shall noTer forget parts of it at least; £®d so hsrs is my .*blw1»( which us* in any vay or reonne©tloa you plaaas. And good luoic. "8hape Of 9Mr Is a orSlliaat and unforgettable g fila, using the sirapleet zmterlals toward the aoet profound and eurpr i airy? result — a feMe that tes the ftoelisg of truth, a fairer tola that belongs to thia world aftar all.. fh@ invention la delightfully free and msay-.of the devices @stploy®& hm& a fssshmass too adml: oftsa saiss in e&rr§i®t rwisag Init ®Y«rything eontriant©• to a total offset that is hoth serious and original, and to a suspense which noting ever oreake* The incident of the °-irl "bound to b- tree will sake movie history one* it ie seen; it is at once beautiful,terrifying and weird; nothing life® it ha* ever been done in a flSfl Before, and it alone ^ms^^s^mx $ms?&n%m% th&t the fntas** of Stanley Su^riek is worth watching for those who want to discover hi$i i talent at the moment i t appears* Please ta^m "believe 1 am not exaggerating hut if yea suppose) aasyone els* my think so, you nay ton® m© down. Again good ludk, said Egr huabla ttete thank« for letting gm mm see the picture *ip~4?,. , „ . v. r HHflHHHH '% ■> .j illillllllll ■■MM X ' t . Mt-v-s* • jf jf- *f' j i>- "f-* *>--$ JL. . tanley Kubrick is one of the most famed directors of the last century. People are often I surprised, however, when I mention that Kubrick directed Spartctcus, I960 — itself well-known, mostly for the "I'm Spartacus" scene and as the film that broke the blacklist by crediting Dalton Trumbo as the screenwriter,1 Even some of those who write about Kubrick choose to overlook this film. The reason given is generally that, as Kubrick did not exert his characteristic amount of control over this production, it is not truly a Kubrick film.2 The recent work of Peter Krämer has, however, begun to call Kubrick's legendary total control over his projects into question, which has important implications for Sparfacus,3 Kubrick himself was not fond of Spartucus, seemingly due to his lack of control over the project and his dislike of the story itself, and it seems that his disavowal of the film has possibly influenced some scholars.4 There is no doubt that the production arrangements on Sparfacus were different to those on Kubrick's other films and therefore can make this film stand out from the rest of his oeuvre. I do not believe, however, that limited input is reason enough to ignore Sparfacus entirely. Kubrick surely made soive contribution to the project and this chapter shall endeavour to establish (as far as possible) what this contribution entailed and whether Sparfacus does indeed merit inclusion in the Kubrick canon.5 The length of this paper means thai I will give just an abbreviated account of the very complicated production history of this film and focus on the most obvious instances of Kubrick's involvement, relying primarily on archival evidence. Spartacus Before Kubrick Spartacus, a project initiated by Kirk Douglas for his own production company, Bryna, was financed by Universal International Pictures (UP) with Douglas himself both the star and executive producer. Working alongside him would be his Bryna colleague, producer Edward Lewis, the blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and three British stars who bad been hired to play the Roman roles, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton and Poter Ustinov. Lewis and Douglas, having fallen in love with the idea of making a film based on Howard Fast's novel Spartacus, struggled to secure financial backing as (coincidentally) Yul Brynner and director Marty Ritt were also working on a Spartacus film based on the novel The Gladiators by Arthur Koestler.6 A determined struggle ensued, but Douglas only became more resolved to defeat the rival Sparfacus film, racing to get his production off the ground.7 A script was rushed together, director and notable actors assembled in order to attract financial backing.8 Although Trumbo delivered an impressive rough draft, Brynner and Quinn already had a studio, United Artists (UA), a script, and had been "scouting locations in Europe".0 Douglas, realising that shooting in Europe meant that UA would have to wait until the weather Improved, opted to begin filming in California immediately, effectively pipping UA to the post.10 Victory was assured, but at a cost. Spartacus would have to begin filming before the production was technically ready and most importantly, before the script was finalised. Sparfacus ran into more difficulties two weeks into filming when the original director, Anthony Mann, suddenly left the project. Douglas turned to a relative unknown, Stanley Kubrick, with whom he had recently worked on Paths of Glory. Kubrick was officially hired to direct Spartacus on Friday 13 February 1959.11 However he was immediately met with adversity. Kubrick was going to be dealing with veterans of the industry in his cast and crew — perhaps the most eminent being the ■«i^Äa^aCTW^T^fW*^ **<•*«. ^^^HHHllllll tr i- » * I. ** 4« »Hg - * f > -yf>*£.v$4p * . ** ,,,, , r \ *r K ^ Ml tttäVift. * ■ ' . V '""Vi? I > "\i''*v^ A'tpt ^ $. * A 4 )(^«lt.^*'->« ' - . -i "fv T'*T-U 4*^-*^ i + *■ ^ .3- ft £ f « j.^ » , # or ^*-V«J» ~ -Hurt* , ... »>^-a« • ■ • . f ^ ♦ « ' ' . c*--4 + t-f-P-i-*--*«**.. f " * • v - / -. <. r w ♦ ■ flH. 9H| ■Al 4.4 li three male British actors, all of whom had also had experience directing. Tony Curtis would note in a I960 interview; "We [had] a great many ego problems."12 It is atruth universally acknowledged that a single film with five directors must be in for some strife.13 Spartacus Enters the Kubrick Era Lewis recalled that the British actors looked down on Kubrick at first.14 They may have learned to respect him more as lime passed, but Laughton, Olivier and Ustinov did not make the production easy for Kuhrick, The pre-existing professional rivalry between Olivier and Laughton also caused considerable tension on set.15 Laughton had arrived on set, already on the defensive, and proceeded to become increasingly paranoid, convinced that his role was being diminished, Ustinov became the only cast member that Laughton really trusted and, as a result, Ustinov and Laughton would end up writing many of their scenes together. All three of the British actors apparently challenged their director on a regular basis.16 Perhaps their difficult behaviour stemmed from the disquiet caused when Tiumbo finally moved on from the Roman roles in order to start work on the Spartacus PREVIOUS PAGE Stanley Kubnck ABOVE Tiame Ian, 0 ixnilar 3-id Ocu:_;Us vjilh „n jnkno^n sliRfi! raslurmg Stanley Kub-:c - pei'jon Ipci^iblv g.usae Met-^, ar.d Kirk Douglas the sel d Lighting Cameraman) or, tbe sat Paths ?iGh>y. SK,'6/3/4 ■■■■ r * * *• v * *■ * -r *» f V-* *■*» Having His Cake and Eating It Too 103 character and they became concerned (hat Douglas was using his position aa executive producer to enhance his awn role.1, Kubrick also encountered problems with some members of the crew, who never really warmed to him, finding his method of shooting (which involved shooting an inordinate number of takes, sometimes from many angles) too demanding.18 Nor were the people at UP thrilled to learn that Kubrick was slowing down production with fiddly camera work. Kubrick's independence also led veteran director of photography Russ Metty to take an especial dislike to him.1& Indeed, Kubrick's youthful appearance may have misled the cast and crew at first. Kubrick's demeanour was in stark contrast to Man: he dressed carelessly and had a calm, reserved manner that belied the strength of his character.20 Kubrick's ego could easily match that of anyone else on the set. Douglas, as executive producer and star, had more power than most on this film. Kubrick may ha>/e wanted to shape Spartacus, however Douglas and Lewis had been the driving forces behind the production for over a year (not to mention the others working on the film prior to Kubrick's involvement, such as Trumbo and Saul Bass).21 A belief that he would be in control might explain Kubrick's famous disillusionment: "although I was the director, mine was only one of many voices to which Kirk listened".22 Or perhaps Kubrick wilfully ignored potential problems when signing on the dotted line, thinking only of the benefits this film could (and did) bring to his career and bank account, including the dissolution of the five-picture deal with Bryna that he had made in order to secure Douglas' backing for Paths of Glory. After all, he had made virtually nothing personally from his films before Spartacus, nor had he directed a film on so large a scale.23 Despite these benefits, Kubrick found being a "hired hand" a bitter pill to swallow.24 Douglas would later remark: "He was very glad to take this movie over with this great cast, but after it was done, he never accepted it with any enthusiasm."26 Unfortunately, Kubrick's own words about his experiences on Spartacus were few; the majority of the surviving material comes from the rest of the cast and crew, particularly from (occasionally hysterical) Trumbo. Battles over the script often raged behind closed doors.26 Even someone as deeply involved in the production as Lewis could not always remember who was responsible for what in the script.27 We do know that prior to Kubrick's hiring, Trumbo had produced three script drafts, with the revised final script (16 January 1959) being the most current (although the dates on many of the pages of the extant draft for this script show that alterations were made up until June, 1959), Trumbo was hoping to be able to polish the script, giving particular attention to the slave characters, which he had been forced to neglect as he worked to perfect the Roman section in order to secure the British stars before UA.28 The script remained in a state of flux as suggested changes to the story persisted. Douglas had final say over the script and seemed to have been less interested in finalising the script than in hearing other people's opinions on it.29 He appears to have possessed an unflagging enthusiasm for exploring the possibilities of scenes and had a weakness for making last minute changes (his nickname amongst the crew was "General Mi Km aster") i which sometimes led to a spur of the moment script conference or improvisation on set. Interestingly, this modus operandi was favoured by Kubrick himself; perhaps a remnant of his time with Douglas. Re-writes of scenes were apparently arriving the morning the scene was due to be shot, and further delays could ensue if Douglas, or one of the more powerful stars, did not like the changes.30 Douglas did not mind this state of affairs provided the result was worthwhile. Indeed, Douglas later confessed that he viewed conflict as part of the creative process that would ultimately produce the desired results.31 At any rate, it seems that Douglas also allowed others to interfere with it as well. Trumbo could not assist with the re-writes on the set; as a blacklisted writer, his involvement could not be made public. Instead, Trumbo had to try and keep track from the sidelines, which often left him severely frustrated.32 The changes were not always major re-writes. Judging by Trumbo's correspondence, he could be fighting over one word or the rewording of a line.33 For example, Trumbo was quite insistent that Varinia should use the 'slave word' "suckle" instead of the refined English term "nurse" in her dining room scene with Crassus, but this change was not made.34 The unsettled nature of the script clearly presented Kubrick with the opportunity he needed to introduce his own vision. Kubrick's first rough cut of the film (screened in August, 1959), the result of the 'collaboration' of ideas, so horrified Trumbo that he produced a lengthy analysis of the film, known as his ''Report on Spartacus". As this cut does not survive, we will never know if Having His Cake and Eating It Too 105 //7,l u-^ ■ / / /w^ iW ' ^ <-— l . ------ -fjw? U-^^ it was as bad as Trumbo and Douglas implied. The Report, however, provides invaluable insight into the creative issues that plagued the production. The fact that the Report was even necessary demonstrates that Douglas, Lewis and Trumbo did not have "everything their way;;, as Kubrick had claimed.36 One of the main problems Trumbo identified was that there were two opposing views of Spartacus and the revolt in the film, which he famously termed the "large" and "the small Spartacus", the result of which was an inconsistent film.37 In short, the large Spartacus portrayed the revolt as a serious threat to Rome and Spartacus as a compassionate, energetic leader, committed to securing the freedom of all his followers. The small Spartacus makes the revolt seem like little more than a "gaol-break" and the slave army achieves no remarkable victory, Spartacus aims only to secure freedom for himself and his lover Varinia. He is a leader who acts mostly on feeling rather than intelligent thought,38 As Trumbo pointed out, the large Spartacus vision had guided the production from the beginning and whilst he was writing the first draft, second draft and final script. Trumbo was personally still committed to this concept; it gelled better with his political beliefs, and he genuinely believed that it would make a better film. The latter reason was of particular concern to Trumbo at this juncture in his career. His plan to break the blacklist was to produce such excellent, profitable work that he would have the power to demand screen credit from the studios.39 That being said, Trumbo was not insisting that the large Spartacus should be adopted; rather, he was arguing that either one or the other had to be embraced entirely so that the end product would be a consistent film. It is worth noting that Trumbo was equally against the incorporation of ideas from Fast's original script as they did not match up with the later vision for the film.40 The implication throughout the Report is that a significant amount of the "small" material was the result of Kubrick's influence. So where did Kubrick's ideas come from? Given the sudden nature of his employment on Spartacus, Kubrick (uncharacteristically) had precious little time for research. This appears to have been Kubrick's choice, as Lewis stated that Douglas and he offered to give him time to acquaint himself with Spartacus, but Kubrick opted to keep the production going.41 Kubrick seems to have conducted some research as production progressed, specifically citing Sallust and Plutarch in an interview.42 It is difficult to say when Kubrick came across Koestler's novel, the rival to Fast's, from which many of Kubrick's ideas for Spartacus (which would eventually cause Trumbo so much grief) allegedly sprang from. Some of Kubrick's ideas may have been supplied by Trumbo himself. Trumbo sent Kubrick some of his own (undated) research notes. It seems highly likely that Trumbo furnished this information for Kubrick soon after he had been hired. Trumbo mentions that he was still waiting for the return of his "principal source on Spartacus" from Tony Mann so he could pass this along to Kubrick as well, which would seem to imply that Mann had only recently left the production.43 The 'principal source' referred to by Trumbo may indeed have been either Sallust or Plutarch.44 We can see the influence that these sources may have had on Kubrick if we examine the revised final script. Although previous scripts had included some moments of tension between Spartacus and his lieutenant Crixus, their disagreements were brief.45 In the revised final script, these spats are Kubrick's handwritten no] indicating the scenes to i rewritten. SK/9/1/2/4 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 106 Having His Cake and Eating It Too 107 transformed into major arguments over the course that the slave army should be pursuing — indeed, Spartacus ends up executing Crixus.46 This plot twist is certainly not borrowed from Fast's novel, where the two slave leaders part on rather amicable terms.47 It is entirely possible that the idea sprang from Sallust and Plutarch, both of whom mention conflict within the slave army.48 Kubrick, however, wanted to place his own spin upon events, Trumbo was not averse to showing arguments between the slaves perse, but only on certain terms. Trumbo asserted that it would be more dramatically effective to show "war between brothers" who share a common goal but disagree about the best way to achieve it, The execution of Crixus would be rendered mora tragic if Spartacus were forced to put him to death for the sake of the cause, not simply because Crixus was a bandit. In addition, it would make little sense for Spartacus to later experience a crisis of conscience at Brundusium (towards the end of the revolt) if he had executed Crixus for his banditry. It would be far more powerful if Spartacus was to realise that perhaps Crixus' strategy (rather than his own) was the correct one after all. Trumbo was also concerned that depicting Crixus as a "mere robber", with a large following amongst the slaves, who were ready to abandon the fight for freedom for the sake of loot would ultimately undermine Spartacus' stature and the revolt as a whole.49 The revised final script bears evidence of both Kubrick's and Trumbo's ideas; however, it is ultimately Trumbo's ideology that dominates. Crixus does lead looting parties (as he had done in the second draft). However, the rea/ conflict with Spartacus is over the ultimate goal of the slave army, with Crixus arguing for (hem to conquer Rome whilst Spartacus advocates for returning to their homelands.50 The tragic note so desired by Trumbo comes when freedom is within reach. Spartacus cannot bring himself to seize upon it when so many remain enslaved. He realises that Crixus' plan to free all the slaves in Italy and take on Rome itself was the best after all.51 A truly large Spartacus would never doubt his objective.52 Kubrick's more jaded take on the conflict between Spartacus and Crixus may have arisen after he read Koestler's novel. Trumbo claimed that Kubrick read Koestler about "midway" through the production. Much has been made of Koestler's influence over Kubrick. Although, like Fast, Koestler was Jewish and had been a member of the Communist Party, their novels did not share the same ideology. Indeed, as Edward Lewis stated, "it was not just a race to make a picture; there was an ideological difference to the Koestler book".53 Fast, another victim of HUAC, had written his novel immediately after serving his sentence in 1950 and was still a member of the Communist Party, whereas Koesfter had written his when he was becoming disillusioned with the Party (finally leaving if in 1938). The Gladiators, published in 1939, was something of a catharsis for Koestler as it allowed him to expiate the use of Utopian ideology and his own uncertainty about the Russian Revolution — or as Koestler himself described it, "the story of another revolution that had gone wrong".54 From Koestler's perspective. Ancient Rome had much in common with the Europe he was currently living in, with "the breakdown of traditional values, the abrupt transformation of the economic system, unemployment, corruption, and a decadent ruling class".65 It is easy to appreciate why Koestler's more pessimistic vision appealed to Kubrick, given Kubrick's attraction to exploring the darker side of human nature, as is evident in his body of works. Unlike Fast's Gracchus or the somewhat idealised members of his slave community, none of Koestler's characters, either slave or Roman, are particularly empathetic. For instance, the slaves demonstrate their capacity for ruthlessness when they kill two slaves to keep them quiet after they are injured in a fall during their descent from Vesuvius.56 Koestler's slave army do not share the same band as Fast's; having learnt little from their experiences as slaves: "From the beginning strife and discord had rent the refugees' camp, they had split up into factions, faithful images of political division in Rome; they had neither forgotten nor learnt anything."57 Yet in their eyes Spartacus will somehow satisfy them all.53 Spartacus himself is charismatic, popular, clever, and seems to have good intentions (unlike many of the other slaves).59 In order to create a utopia (known as the ;Sun State') for his slave followers, Spartacus needs to turn into a ruthless and hard-hearted leader. Some of the people, for instance, who escape in order to join the slave community are not permitted to stay in the Sun State.60 Spartacus even orders the execution of the slave leader, Oenomaus; although he is unable to maintain this stance long enough to execute Crixus and his Celts when this becomes necessary.61 If we turn to the revised final script, we can see possible instances of Koestler's influence (via Kubrick). One such instance is the moment when Spartacus turns away escaped slaves, not having enough room on the ships that have been secured to transport them home. He is forced to witness (he consequences of his decision when the army later discover the tortured remains of these same slaves.62 It is precisely this sort of action that could be labelled "small". A further instance can be found at the very beginning of the revolt. Mere, Spartacus actually has to be convinced by Varinia to stay with the escapees from the ludus; Spartacus can initially only think of securing freedom and safety for himself and Varinia,83 We can also see the idea that the slaves had \earnt \itt\e from their previous lives in the scene in which Crixus forces two Roman officers to duel. Spartacus is the one to step in to put a stop to such proceedings before the slaves turn info Romans (although Crixus is unrepentant).134 It is possible, however, that this last scene actually came from the mother source — Fast.65 Fast was brought back onboard in June-July 1959, possibly at Kubrick's instigation. (This perhaps accounts for Fast's apparent fondness for Kubrick.)66 Fast became involved in the screenwriting process again after someone (possibly Kubrick) uncovered his script, leading to the incorporation of some of his ideas in the final film.67 In addition to the use of his original ideas, Fast wrote five new scenes, one depicting a staged duel between captured Roman officers.66 Interestingly, this last scene not only made it into the final shooting script (14 September 1959) but into the final film,69 Turning to Fast's novel and script, we can see that Koestler was not alone in including moments in which the slaves were warned against becoming like their old masters.75 As for the conflict within the slave community, especially the rivalry between Spartacus and Crixus, it has aii disappeared from the final shooting script and the finished film. In the film Spartacus makes one reference to Crixus' ambitious designs on Rome just before the attack on Glabrus' camp, but this loses ail meaning without the necessary context.71 The character of Crixus ends up being a rather insignificant character, as desired by Douglas who had argued in June 1959 that Crixus' role ought to be considerably reduced following the battle with Glabrus.72 One area of the script where Kubrick certainly had a major impact was the love story between Spartacus and the slave girl Varinia. Kubrick decided to eliminate the vast majority of the dialogue between Varinia and Spartacus during their time at the ludus, and Trumbo, Douglas 1 Having His Cake and Eating It Too 109 and Simmons were all big fans of the changes.73 Kubrick also changed the pair's first meeting. Previously this scene had been characterised by violence and hostility.74 The touching, much calmer first encounter seen in the film was brought about by Kubrick. Again, Trumbo was very admiring of this new direction. Trumbo understood that, since Varinia was no stranger to all sorts of maltreatment, it would not ring true if she was shown "beat(ing) her little fists" and fighting for her virtue, regardless of whether she was the heroine of the film.75 Kubrick was also the one to decide that Varinia should disrobe upon her first meeting with Spartacus; Trumbo had originally planned for her to do this in her final scene with Crassus.76 However, Trumbo was not always enamoured with Kubrick's ideas for the slave couple. In the love scene in which Spartacus tells Varinia that he "wants to know" everything (following which the couple conceive their child) Kubrick had directed the actors to perform a particular embrace — what Trumbo termed the 69 position. Trumbo (supported in his beliefs by his wife Cleo) saw this as detrimental to Spartacus' character as he asserted that it made Spartacus appear like an animal, rather than someone Varinia would prefer to the twisted Crassus.77 Those who have seen Spartacus will know that Trumbo lost this battle, although he did at least have a small victory in that Varinia's lines in this scene (which had at one point been eliminated) were restored.78 Similarly, Trumbo failed to preserve his beloved slave 'mass marriage" scene that was to take place before the final battle from Kubrick's displeasure, as the director eventually managed to turn the rest of the cast against it as well.79 Kubrick does not seem to have been particularly concerned with Varinia. After seeing Kubrick's rough cut, Trumbo opined that she had become insipid and lifeless— hardly the fierce, strong, slave leader envisioned by Fast and captured by Trumbo in the earlier scripts.80 Admittedly, Simmons' performance may have been partly to blame for this. In his Report, Trumbo remarked that he often found Varinia's reactions too lady-like and refined, dubbing these her "Milady" moments. In Trumbo's eyes, this diminution of Varinia's stature as a character came about as there was a lack of empathy for her. The reshoots presented an opportunity to reinstate Varinia as "a fully developed woman, with dignity and usefulness".81 I believe that this opportunity was missed. Varinia does appear beside Spartacus in the scenes depicting the slaves unwinding around the campfire as well as some of the shots in the marching montage. There are also cuts to Varinia as she bathes the screaming slave children or as she brings food and wine to the slave leaders whilst pregnant; indeed, it was Kubrick's idea for Spartacus to playfully pat Varinia's pregnant stomach during the scene in which the slave leaders share their memories of their homelands.82 In the pseudo-family that is the slave army of the final film, Varinia appears as something of a mother-figure with Spartacus as the father. Alison Futrell has noted that Varinia is often pictured holding a jar of some sorts, signifying that she is "a receptacle for another's action" (a well-established metaphor in Classical Greece), rather than being a proactive figure in her own right.83 The old Varinia is absent; instead, we have only Stepford-Varinia. Somehow, Varinia ceased to play a vital role and lapsed into a far more traditional part in which "what counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him (whether this be Spartacus or Crassus) act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance."84 Stanley Kubrmk talks with Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 110 This downgrading of Varinia can seem most perplexing when we consider that Simmons did not kick up a fuss over her part like so many of the other actors whose parts ended up emerging in better shape. Therein may lie the problem; Varinia needed Simmons to join Trumbo's efforts in defending her but Simmons' persona! issues may have meant that her attention was engaged elsewhere (i.e. her impending divorce). Lewis did at least back Trumbo up in one instance that we know of, telling Kubrick that he missed seeing Varinia in the shots of battle preparation and advocating for their inclusion.85 Douglas claimed his intention from the beginning to produce a love story, yet I believe he saw these scenes as a means of showing off Spartacus' character, rather than illuminating the characters of both Spartacus and Varinia.156 Curtis noticed a similar trend in regards to his own character, Antoninus. During the tumultuous period of the slave section being re-written so that it would be of equal interest as the Roman section, Spartacus' character had been a particular point of concern. In the quest to raise Spartacus' stature, Curtis felt that Antoninus was being ignored and disadvantaged.87 Yet, Varinia suffered far more than Antoninus. As Curtis himself pointed out, the part of Antoninus actually grew larger during the production (although, unlike Simmons, Curtis had fiercely opposed the moves to diminish Antoninus in his scenes opposite Spartacus).38 As previously noted, Trumbo felt that no one else on the creative team had much empathy for her, and thus it does seem as though Varinia was overlooked in the commotion.89 Kubrick and Curtis appear to have become quite friendly, potentially leading Kubrick to concentrate more on Antoninus who, after the breakout, Spartacus seems to value just as highly as Varinia,90 (there was a plan to give Antoninus more of Vannia's part at one stage).91 Female characters are rarely the centre of attention in Kubrick films; their parts are usually minor. Some commentators have prematurely labelled Kubrick as a misogynistic director. This characterisation seems to imply a deliberate maliciousness to Kubrick's intentions. I would rather say that female characters rarely hold Kubrick's interest and are therefore often overlooked. Indeed, Varinia was not the only female character that Kubrick ignored. When watching Kubrick's first cut, Trumbo was appalled to discover that no slave women appeared in the general scenes of the camp. If it were not for his impassioned arguments, slave women may have disappeared from the film altogether.92 Kubrick has, however, been lauded for insisting that the final battle between Spartacus and Crassus should be included in the film — and there Is no denying that this scene is worthy of a Hollywood epic. The scale Kubrick managed to convey is truly impressive. Consider, for example, the ragtag slave multitude versus the chessboard formation of the Roman legions. The scenes showing the advancing Roman army were shot from 100 foot high towers, All the previous scripts (and even Fast's Step Outline) had opted to omit this last battle as the audience would be aware of how it ends, depicting it in a symbolic manner by focussing the camera on the Silarus River, incorporating the sounds of a distant battle. Then gradually the evidence of battle would float down the river and into view (such as blood staining the water),93 His partner, James Harris, recalled that Kubrick thought this approach was wrong for an epic — at least for an epic that wanted to perform at the box office.94 The final shooting script (14 September 1959) is thus the only script in which a real battle is scripted.95 In reality, however, Kubrick did not provide Spartacus with a much needed battle scene; rather, he allowed focus to be shifted from Spartacus' victories to his defeat. The previous scripts Sf "rar TOaP »"vszefgc "v ■ .j» had included earliei battle scenes in which the slave army triumphed over the Romans. With the inclusion of the final chsh, the slave victories took a backseat. In the finaf shooting script, all that would be shown is a shot of the slave leaders marching into a town (designated as Luceria by a superimposed title and one of Gracchus' lines in the previous scene), and something similar for the slaves' triumphal entry into iVIetapontum.95 Trumbo asserted that this downgrading of slave triumphs represented the "first campaign" against Spartacus. He was determined not to surrender on this point, as he felt that Spartacus would appear to be merely the leader of a group of "runaway convicts". Trumbo, claiming that the olher members of the production team had never really seen the need for a large Spartacus (a commanding and competent figure who struck Rome at its heart), asserted thai they had only agreed to it so that there was an explanation as to Spartacus' activities during Varinia's pregnancy. However Douglas claims that Kubrick, Lewis and he were all fully committed to Trumbo's vision of the large Spartacus.9r Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 112 Having His Cake and Eating It Too 113 Trurnbo (seemingly with the support of Kubrick, Lewis and Douglas) continued to fight for the inclusion of battle footage or map inserts — anything that would incorporate a "sequence of victories" for the slaves.98 Although additional funding for these extra battle scenes, along with scenes showing me slaves' travels, was discussed whilst the funding for the epic last stand was being secured from UP, all the money and the extra reshooting time were absorbed by the latter in the end." In addition, although the final cut shows three Roman armies (those of Pornpey, Lucuilus and Crassus) taking down the sfave army, the fack of close-ups on an anxious Crassus awaiting the backup of Pompey and Lucuilus meant that the audience could easily miss the fact that the slaves almost won and were actually only beaten due to the Romans' superior numbers.Lao In order to win Olivier over to the project, the film had originaffy been designed1 to begin with Crassus discussing Spartacus' impressive number of victories and then flashback to the mines, however this was altered late in the production (possibly against Kubrick's wishes), leaving the audience without the immediate impression that Spartacus was a formidable foe.10' Only the aftermaths of battles were included in the final film, the most significant of which is the first victory over Glabrus, but the importance of this was marred by the fact that the Romans fail to set up proper defences and were shown drinking and laughing as they marched out. The other 'aftermath' scene, the staves' triumphant entry into Metapontum, would not have made it into the final film were it not for the retakes following Trumbo's Report.102 Kubrick's insistence on including a final epic battle scene allowed UP to place the emphasis squarely on this clash. Cooper claims that although the studio blamed the budget and time restrictions, UP was really worried that impressive slave victory scenes might lessen the impact of the last stand, whilst average slave victory scenes might spoil the film itself.103 Cooper has pointed out that UP's concerns may have run a little deeper with the studio growing more apptehensive about the potential communist connotations of some of the film content, especially with rumours circulating in 1959 that there would be another round of congressional hearings. Spartacus had, after all, become a big investment for UP and a far cry from the $4 million originally budgeted.104 Cooper believes that there was enough extra footage from Kubrick's excursion to Spain (where he had filmed the last stand) and the battle retakes of February, 1960 to assemble slave victory scenes if the desire had really been there.102 Editor Bob Lawrence allegedly told Cooper that there was access to "hundreds of feet of [additional] battle scenes", but that there was not universal support for its inclusion in the final cut.106 Several montages (such as the Battle of Luceria) may have been pieced together from this additional footage and battle maps in the early months of I960. Needless to say, Trurnbo did not get his "sequence of victories".107 For all the talk about battle maps, it was decided mere months before the film's release in October 1960 to use superimposed titles instead when there was a change in location.108 So far we have seen that many of Kubrick's contributions 'downgraded' the slave characters (at least in Trumbo's eyes). Trumbo's Report might lead us to think that the disagreements during the production were black and white affairs (or large and small tn this case). Yet this would be to misunderstand Kubrick's motives. Kubrick, like Trurnbo, wanted to produce great cinema; they just disagreed on what it entailed, Whilst Kubrick may have relished the darker side of human nature, he was clearly not incapable of seeing the large Spartacus and did, on occasion, introduce 'large' material. We should note that none of the sources that Kubrick allegedly used (namely Sallust, Plutarch and Koestler) painted Spartacus in an entirely negative light. After the reduction of the roles of Crixus and Dionysius, there were no characters left with whom Spartacus could interact as an equal (whilst Crassus, Gracchus and Batiatus had each other). Antoninus and Varinia did not count as Trurnbo felt that Spartacus played with them, not against them. Without such a character, Spartacus would not have the stature that the Roman characters had achieved.109 Kubrick proposed using new scenes with the pirate envoy, Tigranes, to paint Spartacus as someone just as intelligent as Crassus, Trurnbo whole-heartedly supported this idea.110 This would be achieved by showing Spartacus consulting maps and cleverly eliciting crucial information from Tigranes during these scenes, thus making if clear that he was a strategic mastermind.111 Kubrick's instincts were not always so on the mark. He apparently disliked the "I am Spartacus" scene and would have been happy to see it excised from the script as well.112 Although some might believe that Spartacus would have been a better film if Kubrick had been in charge, this is not necessarily the case. As Barry Lyndon shows, a prodigious amount of research and going to incredible lengths in order to produce an 'authentic' historical film does not necessarily result in a film that large audiences find dramatically compelling. I would argue that the cinematography in Spartacus is impressive and Kubrick is given the credit for this, There is no denying that Kubrick's films are always visually compelling and his background as a photographer is evident. Yet some of the most lauded sequences, such as the breakout at the Indus and the final battle scenes, appear to owe much to the designs of Saul Bass,113 Most notably, Kubrick allegedly lobbied hard against the inclusion of what would become one of the most iconic film scenes of all time —the Trurnbo authored, Douglas-championed "I am Spartacus" scene.114 Kubrick was certainly resolved that Spartacus needed to be seen as his film and seemed pleased with the result. The archival material demonstrates that this was not all a show for the press.115 Kubrick even stated in one interview: "It's just as good as Paths of Glory, and certainly there's as much of myself in it."116 When Douglas was debating whether to use the blacklisted Trumbo's name in the credits or not, Kubrick was very happy to offer the use of his own name as screenwriter.117 Although Douglas famously broke the blacklist and used Trumbo's name, this incident shows that Kubrick was willing to be associated with the script for Spartacus. Indeed, articles from the time of the release support this.113 Kubrick asserted that he had been given total freedom and that improvisation during filming was a commonality, a claim that so incensed Trurnbo that he decided to sever his relationship with Kubrick.119 It appears that Kubrick changed his tune in regard to Spartacus later, once he had reaped the benefits. Thus, with regards to this film Kubrick was trying to have his cake and eat it too. The creative conflict (hat characterised the filming of Spartacus was destined to continue into the final editing phase. Kubrick would, of course, have preferred to cut the film himself (editing being one of his favourite phases of filmmaking).120 Douglas, Lewis and Kubrick often fought over what should be included and excluded, however in the end ail of these passionate people were trumped by the studio, which had the final cut rights.121 Douglas places the blame for the resulting 'medium' Spartacus squarely on UP.122 Having His Cake and Eating It Too 115 TO J 2. ;ddis: lewis LIST 0? POUTS STraLJFffl_|«E^?^2ISl£ Sj^UjSHC____ i o j -r of I* j i'-rily rerr-;1, -olio" * sf e - ftu little boT hum In... zfues the reisily. I sug&ost v; •:rl!» so a aca*e dots*! longtn. Thi« will arfeec vhs next i'bh BATTLS _i o"J«r to avoid confusion about tre isj^b^r o* •Drieonrr- 3rg-;3. " -'9 oi'fc >.uv i" a- ..us ques rirt , *'T tHaj?? a arf -f niIcq—"-'?'' £p0 of odu_'S8 9 iot>j; . 1 ill SPAR"'AC'?3 " SEQ3ESC3 So/eral cjoplo aave fait that "iok Daanis 1 haraainess .j*.<3 ; -;3Tio- r 1 yiteh of The iccna. Be oculd out pfiek cat pr.d Duild the Bosnc on Crassas 1 face sad th« extreme lorur shot of -lc -jo1 it" via;,-, ao tlist it " oulc ba trs sane Ijr.r,r:_, , _• . id pat bs.fc tl.8 od-s-.u^s aoo-« oet-ee i prass»s , , TJ> fee - hin " W- fh.-VJ cf> n a.igrfcl- nvlT^ZlT a^iS- « - CO - « > cT-s^e £ö, tl , ift*ll Conclusion Kubrick is often painted as the instigator of the so-called small Spartacus, no doubt thanks to the myriad of notes left behind by Trumbo. Yet the ideas Kubrick brought to this film were not actually always so small. Although he was only one of the people who contributed to this film (a standard situation in the film industry even for Kubrick), we can see that Stanley Kubrick did leave an imprint on Spartacus. The final film certainly does not wholly represent Kubrick's vision for the project but there is no denying that it was changed irrevocably by his involvement. Kubrick seems to have had more influence over the script than has previously been suspected, especially if he perpetuated the move to reintroduce Fast to the project. Nonetheless, many of Kubrick's ideas for this film were eventually discounted and he did not have anywhere near the amount of input on Spartacus as he did on his other films. In this respect Spartacus is not a case study for those interested in a typical Kubrick production. The fact that Kubrick brought his typical temerity to this production and fought for his own vision, however, means that one of Kubrick's largest contributions to this film is its overall lack of coherence. The unevenness can be seen in many instances which I have discussed in this paper, particularly in relation to the character of Spartacus himself (neither large nor small), in the lack of scenes showing slave victories {in spite of the scattered references to their triumphs) and in the overall impression that the slave army was supposedly something to be reckoned with. A lack of coherence was exactly what Trumbo had been afraid of when he detected the opposing depictions of Spartacus: "Whether Spartacus was a good film or bad does not matter; the real story relates not to the quality of the finished product, but to the difficulties of getting anything at all on the screen that people could understand."123 This is not to say Kubrick alone is to blame for this; there were too many cooks with their ladles in this stew. Douglas was, undeniably, the most powerful player on the production team and the man ultimately responsible for the film.124 It was Trumbo, however, who ultimately tried to rescue this film from the mess it had descended into under the influence of Douglas, Kubrick and the three British stars.125 Hopefully Spartacus will no longer be glossed over by those interested in Kubrick's work. It was not so unusual for Kubrick to be working in collaboration with other talented individuals (such as Peter Sellers) or for Kubrick to have to navigate around certain conditions whilst making a film (such as the censorship issues that arose on Dr. Strangehve).123 We also should not underestimate the impact that this film had on Kubrick's career; his colleagues believed that Kubrick was using the epic in an attempt to 'hit the bigtime' and that is precisely what he did. The success of Spartacus placed Kubrick in a powerful negotiating position for his subsequent, more personal projects.127 Note to Eddie Lewis, the producer working for Kirk Douglas' production jmpariy BryriH, 'I he* noie, possibly wiilten by Stanly Kubrick, lists sections of the Tflm open for re-cutting. SK/9/1/2/6 Kubrick: New Perspectives 118 1 rom The Killing, 1956, onwards and wilh the exception of 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968, all of Stanley Kubrick's films were based on existing literature, with much of the critical commentary focussing on the idiosyncratic ways the director adapted the literary works for screen. James Welsh notes that "Kubrick had two literary' talents besides his genius for creating visual spectacles: one was for satire, and the other was for transformative adaptation".1 With the donation of Kubrick's archives to the University of the Arts London and the ensuing accessibility for research, an opportunity has arisen to consider in a new light how Kubrick transformed novels for the screen. The archival material enables us to go beyond comparative analyses of the films and their literary sources, offering insight in the very processes of adaptation. And the Lolita materials offer us something more: not only evidence of how the process of adaptation unfolded, but also an insight into why Kubrick adapted the novel the way he did. This essay does not seek to look at the adaptation scene-by-scene, but rather to examine the creative processes behind it, backed by the material found in the archive. In a letter to Peter Ustinov, the actor with whom Kubrick had worked on Spartacus, 1960, the filmmaker laid out his at this letter in detail and consider how the visions outlined there materialised in the actual film. Kubrick's index cards offer further insight into which aspects of the story he considered integral and how this translated into the characterisation of Lolita, Humbert Humbert and Clare Quilty.3 What emerges from this material is that Kubrick, from the outset, considered Lolita to be a love story and a tragicomedy, which had strong bearing on the way he re-shaped Nabokov's literary characters for the screen. The essay will also consider the creative input of Calder Willingham, the screen-writer who Kubrick had engaged for the project prior to working with Nabokov, and the work of Martin Russ, the author who Kubrick had engaged to re-work sections of Nabokov's screenplay. Lastly, we will look at the impact censorship had on the film. Archival Materials As indicated above, this essay makes extensive use of two particular pieces of archival material. These items reveal a great deal about Kubrick's initial desires for his film and how they developed, indicating the motivations behind some of the decisions made during the development of the Lolita script. These items are the letter Kubrick wrote to Peter Ustinov in May 1960, and a series of index cards containing Kubrick's handwritten notes and comments. The notes are undated but are clearly written very early in the process, as they contain comments on Nabokov's novel and the first draft script.4 The Ustinov letter is written from a director to a director-actor; it discusses the story from a directorial point of view. The index cards were written in reaction, and contemporaneously, to Kubrick's reading of Nabokov (both his novel and the first draft of his screenplay). These items reveal Kubrick's creative view, his understanding of Nabokov's text and his motives behind the particular adaptation choices. It is also important to note what the archive does not include. There is no script written in full by Kubrick and there is no script written as shot.5 What does exist is a series of Nabokov screenplays (whole and sections) and a Calder Willingham script onto which Kubrick has made cuts, alterations and notes.6 There is no extensive evidence of Nabokov's workings. Apart from his final screenplays, the archive contains only one other item that sheds light on his own creative view, namely a letter he wrote to Kubrick in 1965.7 Finally, there is no archival evidence for the creative input of James B Harris, Kubrick's producing partner, or other staff or actors, Within the parameters of this essay, I have not sought this evidence from elsewhere, with the exception of the novel itself,8 two interviews with Harris9 and Nabokov's "Preface" to the published version of his screenplay.10 A Tragicomic Love Story The clearest insight into Kubrick's creative vision for the film comes from the Ustinov letter: "I think the most important thing... is that it is a love story. A sad, tender, eventually heartbreaking story of passion-love."11 He explains that passion-love is "scandalous, masochistic and tortured", as opposed to the "modern ideal", which is based on creating a life together.12 Kubrick saw Humbert PREVIOUS PAGE Colour contact s^etfrorr SU-ILey Kubiick's Personal Collect!™ fesiiHng pnrtnails of 3js Lyon (Lolita). SK/10/9/3 ABOVE Index caids containing Stanley Kubrick's handwritten notes marking interesting plot point: and "good tetls" in the story of Lolita. SK/10/l/ll Re-Writing Nabokov's Lollta 121 as a creature not of the modern world but of a chivalric past: pining away for his lover, more in the guise of Abeiard than a 1960s male lead. He is not a merciless predator, as paedophiles are commonly viewed. For Kubrick, Humbert is an anti-hero and the story is told through his eyes; he is the narrator of a modern tragicomedy. Nabokov's novel is also told through the eyes of Humbert, with much of the literary commentary on the novel relating to whether or not Humbert is a reliable narrator, especially in relation to Lolita's participation in their relationship. Some argue he is deliberately manipulating his audience, makingthem complicit in his crimes by invitingthem to participate.13 No such ambiguity appears to manifest itself in the film. Humbert's invitations that request reader participation, which are present in the novel, are removed from the film. Furthermore, in Kubrick's version, Humbert is not the sole storyteller —which is partly due to the nature of the cinematic medium. We know it is his story as we hear his voice in the voice-over; but we also have Kubrick's camera, which shows the events and presents the characters independently of (or, in addition to) the main protagonist's view. Kubrick wrote in the letter to Ustinov that he envisioned his Lolita not only as "a love story", but also as a "realistic comedy".14 Indeed, many of Kubrick's alterations to Nabokov's screenplay add a comic element. When Charlotte Haze and Humbert first see Lolita in her garden, Charlotte asks why he chose to rent with them: "Was my garden the decisive factor?"; to which Nabokov has him reply: "Yes, I am very fond of nature." But Kubrick altered this to "No, I believe it was the cherry pies", and adds a production note "Charlotte laughs a bit too intensely".16 There is humour in Nabokov, for sure, but Kubrick is more overt. He also added in sarcasm. In Nabokov's screenplay, when Charlotte tells Humbert of her club and of the Anglo-Dutch stock of Ramsdale, she states: "We are very intellectual"; and he responds: "Urn". Kubrick altered Humbert's response to "That is immediately apparent",18 Even names are played with to heighten the humour: "Climax Lake Camp" becomes "Camp Climax", etc.. These amendments are relatively subtle, but they give the film a lightness of tone beyond that found in the screenplay. Kubrick's index cards, which are littered with references to comic elements and moments, indicate that Kubrick's preoccupation with humour was present from the very beginning. For example, for the scene of Humbert reading a newspaper, Kubrick notes: "can be expanded into a very amusing scene"; where Humbert gives Charlotte sleeping pills, he writes: "very funny"; and the note for the roller rink scene reads: "amusing scene",17 Although not all the scenes he commented on made the final cut, the proliferation of Kubrick's marking points where humour could/does occur shows that comedy was an early driver. Why? Kubrick wrote to Ustinov: "The mood of the book must be preserved. The surface of gaiety and humor, the... wit of Humbert, the bon mot... [with] flippantly dispatched [dialogue] and the tempo and vitality of comedy."18 Kubrick goes on to state that the viewer should only get glimpses of the darker side of Humbert and that the "story will be told in the subtle style of realistic comedy".19 In order to explain his meaning, he compares his rendering of the story with two previously released comedy-dramas, Max OphOls' La Plaisir, 1952, and Frederico Fellini's / Vitelloni, 1953. The first explores conflicting sides of human nature and the second shows the difference between how the characters see themselves and how they really are.20 Both are films of One of the many sheets of revi: nialogue for Lolita in Kubrick's handwriting SK/1 0/1 /?3 Kubrick: New Perspectives 122 observation, using humour as a 'psychologist' observing human behaviour. Humour, in these films, is used as a subtle weapon to reveal psychological and societal dysfunctions. It is therefore fair to assume that Kubrick's intention was, at least partly, the same. Humour also serves to lighten the sexual element of the story, making it more palatable. In the motel seduction scene, for example, we have Lolita behaving coquettishly and' humorously. The latter has a dampening effect that makes the former more subtle. This serves as an aid to the audience, encouraging them to forget the age gap and moral implications of the situation. It instead enables them to concentrate on the coming together of two lovers who are using humour to break tension in a way that the audience can relate to. The audience can identify with the awkward humour of the cinematic love making and empathise with the characters. In the letter to Ustinov, Kubrick writes that the seduction scene in the novel "comes quite close to the way it ought to wind up on the screen with a couple of exceptions".21 He notes that the night before the seduction takes place Humbert approaches a sleeping Lolita and "she is his if he wants her", until she stirs and Humbert desists. "We [Harris and Kubrick] had this changed, she doesn't stir and he still doesn't take her." The change was made in order to "win points" for "our hero": he will not take a comatose girl even though he could. It also serves to clarify that she seduces him, "as indeed she does.,, in the book and in our film", Kubrick concludes his exposition on the comic by writing "I don't think there can be any quarrel with the fact that the story offers a marvelous opportunity for humour."22 Clearly this is what Kubrick felt on reading Nabokov and what he aimed at in his film. Humbert "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to lap, at three, on the teeth. Lo.Lee.Ta."23 So begins Nabokov's Humbert, immediately telling the reader that the text concerns an object of passion, that the storyteller is literate and eloquent and that the story is told from his perspective. There is a hint at an all-consuming passion that is illicit in some way. Humbert takes possession of this: "my sin". Humbert's characterisation in Nabokov's first screenplay follows the novel's laying out of Humbert's passion and employs the same narrative outline as the novel: Humbert's youth, his European life, his explorations into the world of the nymphets and his relationship with his psychoanalyst.24 Thus the audience is given the tools with which to begin assessing Humbert and the knowledge that this narrative is a prelude to the story about Lolita. Kubrick asked for cuts and re-writes, but even after these Nabokov's later screenplays largely maintain the novel's storyline; they are essentially the novel in a different format both in depth and scope (to accommodate this the film would have run for nine hours), Kubrick removed this entire background narrative: he wanted mystery to pervade his version. Perhaps the most crucial omission from the novel by Kubrick in terms of character development is the near total lack of reference to Humbert's life before he meets the Hazes. Kubrick's Humbert comes as if from nowhere. He is therefore an unexplained, mysterious character with no past. On the index cards Kubrick often notes moments where Charlotte shows her "insatiable curiosity" about Humbert's past loves. He also notes her jealousy regarding 38 Continued CHARLOTTE This is your room, It's what you might call a semi-studio affair — very male. \ q y— . (ad libs about set) .,„.w-i>^"' ' CHARLOTTE ^ Are you married, Monsieur Humbert ? HUMBERT * Divorced, Madame'happily divorced. They exit Madame, Madame — - only in the Romance languages does one feel really mature : I ' * remember when the late Mr. Haze and I were on our honeymoon.*f nevWFKfly "- ' felt married until we went-abroad and I heard myself addressed as " i a lovely-SSS^wlffSomplete integrity. / I know you would have enjoyed talking to £*(>.>?!% I him- and he to you. Reverently touching a large urn, she smiles bravely. CHARLOTTE These are ibP-ashcs-t>t »h»-Uso-Mr.. Ha.?.?., .^-r HUMBERT Oh, I see. How late, f? was. Mr. Haze? •i* CHARLOTTE/^T £lf i Ten-years. It'sAswdfor avfemtn atone. r , **tf«(f N. ff. Jo J Humtert opens closed A painted screen\f the folding type topples into hii-nrms, along wiKLsome other junk'siled in closet. 31.10.60. limu * Kubrick: New Perspectives 124 Re-Writing Nabokov's Lo/ita 125 Humbert when other women surround him. Kubrick espouses that these moments provide a chance for the "exposition" of Valeria and Annabel.25 Annabel, in Nabokov's novel, is Humbert's teenage love who dies suddenly, their love making having previously been interrupted; and Valeria is his ex-wife, their marriage representing Humbert's failed attempt at an adult relationship. Yet these expositions did not make it into the movie. The same cards offer an explanation. On Valeria leaving Humbert, Kubrick writes: "It's a chance to catch-up on the exposition [but] Problem; what kind of light does it place Humbert in? Is it important to show him a winner?"26 The lack of reference to Humbert's first marriage, according to Kubrick's index cards, had to do with the director's novel take on the characterisation of Humbert. The explanation for leaving out Annabel is somewhat different. Kubrick writes that her and Humbert's relationship "fragments [the] moment[um]"of the story.27 His preoccupation here is with the flow of narrative, rather than the impact (or rather, a lack of it) of the character's past on his present. A cut scene involves dialogue between Humbert and Lolita concerning Annabel. In a preceding scene, Nabokov has Annabel and Humbert in a hayloft, in regard to which Kubrick noted that this should be replaced by showing them with a music box. In the Humbert and Lolita scene Kubrick adds a reference to this music box and has it as a prop. In the same scene.. Humbert is drawing a girl and Lolita asks if it's her. Humbert replies that it is a little girl he knew when he was her age. Kubrick notes that he then ''shows her a photograph of his first love. Annabel".28 The scene implies that some of the attraction Humbert holds for Lolita comes from her resemblance to his first love. Nabokov's screenplay overtly suggests this through Humbert's discussions with his psychoanalyst. A later version of the script has none of these scenes, but an even later version does. Kubrick's alterations of and additions to Nabokov's script offer insight into the development of his thinking on the story and the characters. He was trying to establish how (or, if at all) to deal with Humbert's past and he ultimately decided to omit all references to Annabel and Valeria. In editing and then deleting Humbert's early life from the film, Kubrick re-shaped him as a character consumed by his current love and passion for Lolita, rather than as a character consumed by deviant lusts, emerging from the effects of his past life on his psychological development. However, main facets of his outward personality are unchanged, thereby maintaining Kubrick's initial aim that his Humbert would reflect the "mood" of Nabokov's.30 Guilty Kubrick made a note on a copy of Nabokov's first draft screenplay; "Remember this: The audience remembers Quilty."33 The major plot deviation from Nabokov concerns the beginning of the story. Kubrick moved the murder of Quilty, which, in Nabokov, happens towards the end of the novel, to the beginning of the film, This is why the audience remembers, and knows of, Quilty.32 Immediately we are told, by means of visual presentation, that Quilty is eccentric, artistic, flamboyant and wealthy. Humbert is dressed demurely with little to distinguish him; he is tired, restless and clearly a man on the brink. Not knowing who Humbert is, Quilty delivers a comic speech, containing ironic references to Kubrick's previous film, Spartacus, and is then shot by Humbert.33 The film starts on a note of tragicomedy and with a puzzle: why did Quilty get shot? In the Ustinov tetter, Kubrick wrote ^ &V 1"*-, *4 *•♦• Mi that he intended Quilty to be a "mysterious presence",34 In Nabokov's Lolita, Quilty is a relatively minor character. The story is told from Humbert's point of view and for much of the book he is only vaguely aware of Quilty's existence. In Kubrick's version, however, Quilty becomes vital for the unfolding of the narrative; the audience is acutely aware of his presence (having remembered him from the beginning of the film), yet it is nonetheless a "mysterious presence", as the viewers must wait until the end of the film to understand his precise role in the story and the motives behind his murder. In an interview, James B Harris claimed that the change of plot involving the murder at the beginning was done at his request, but that the many changes regarding the character of Quilty were made on Kubrick's insistence/5 We know that Kubrick, Harris and Nabokov all agreed on the plot change concerning the placing of the murder scene prior to the writing of the first draft (the first screenplay by Nabokov has the murder at the beginning), but it was Kubrick who Screens not from Lo!:ta showing Humbert Humbert (James Mason) in Ulitss r^drtswT,, looking at the portrait of Claire Quilty oi thr v.'nll. Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 126 He-Writing Nabokov's Lolito 127 wrote most of the dialogue for the scene. He anchors himself firmly in the film by the reference to Spartacus and gives shape to his Quilty at the outset. In an annotated version of the first draft screenplay, the entire sequence is re-written in Kubrick's hand, except for the poem "Because you took advantage...", but even here Kubrick inserts a humorous line; "A little repetitious, what?"36 This level of re-writing is perhaps not surprising: being the major plot change from the novel to the film, it fits that it would deviate in other ways, too. One further scene where Kubrick seems to have made major changes is that in which Lolita and Humbert Humbert are being followed. Only four lines of Nabokov's original dialogue for this scene survived Kubrick's edits.37 The other sections of Kubrick's dialogue edits and re-writes are not so extensive, altering the tone of Nabokov's script, rather than completely changing it. The start of the film, on the other hand, as we have seen, was extensively re-written by Kubrick; creating a major narrative consequence: the scene sets Quilty up as an important agent in the story. Quilty subsequently keeps 'popping up' throughout the film. He is part of Lolita's teenage bedroom scenography: she has a picture of him on the wall. Charlotte is acquainted with him too: Kubrick changed the name of a lecturer she met to "Quilty".38 While he is obviously an influence on the female characters in the film (Kubrick makes this clear to the viewer by both word and image) — Humbert knows nothing until the very end of the film. In the second draft screenplay by IMabokav, we are made aware that Lolita knows Quilty. There is a scene in which Lolita asks her mother if she spoke to him at a dance; she comments that her friend is "crazy about him", and Charlotte subsequently explains who he is to Humbert.39 Kubrick cut this scene, for if he had kept it the seed would have been sown in Humbert's mind that Quilty might be a desirable figure to a girl.40 Such cuts add suspense and ambiguity. The discrepancy between what the viewer knows and what the characters know is the major driver of the mystery. At the beginning of the film (i.e. the end of the story) Humbert knows more than both the audience and Quilty; while in the remainder of the film it is Humbert who is largely unaware of both Quilty's presence and his role. With his alterations to Nabokov's screenplay, Kubrick enhanced both the presence of Quilty (by making him more salient to the viewer) and the mystery concerning the role of his character. Lolita Kubrick's characterisation of Lolita represents a fundamental shift from Nabokov, this shift being integral to the director's intentions to render his film as a comic love story and to represent Lolita as a partner in the relationship, rather than a mere object of Humber's passion. Due to the comedy element, Lolita could not be represented as a tortured heroine. However, she also could not come over as too brazen. To remind the reader, Kubrick's film was to be a "realistic" comedy, so a certain subtlety and maturity was required. Nabokov wrote that on being shown Sue Lyon he was told by Kubrick that she could easily be made to look younger and "grubbier", thereby implying a style closer to the Lolita of the novel: a pre-teen tomboy.41 However it is likely that this was a statement made to appease Nabokov rather than one of actual intent, as at no point is there any evidence that Kubrick was going to do this. The opposite is true as we see in Kubrick's remarks to Peter Ustinov. In Nabokov's novel and screenplays, Lolita's attraction is not looks-based. Kubrick noted in the letter to Ustinov that Nabokov's Lolita was "not above average looking", but that for him it was important that she be "a very quickly recognizable sex object". Also, she was to be "exciting as well as believable". To this end Kubrick didn't grubby her up (in spite of what he might have said to Nabokov). The visual impact of her image in the film is immediate: as soon as they see Lolita in the Haze's garden, peering over her sunglasses, the audience cannot but notice the attractiveness of the girl. Kubrick's note cards, however, reveal that his vision of Lolita underwent changes. His earlier thinking on her does not fully correspond to how she appears in the film. "Lolita— moods of naivete and deception, charm and vulgarity, blue sulks and rosy mirth, disorganised boredom, intense, sprawling, droopy, dopey-eyed, goofing off-diffused dreaming in a boyish hoodlum way" —that's how Kubrick described her in one of his earlier index cards.43 She is contradictory, blossoming and boyish: a pre-teen tomboy. Later, this had morphed into Kubrick wanting her to appear as a sex object with subtlety and "a certain quality of hardness", "sulky, tentative and cagey", whilst still being "a willowy, angular, ballet school type".44 Lolita was to be "enigmatic, intriguing, indifferent and American".45 Kubrick's Lolita turned out to be, in many ways, a typical teenager of middle America, which was emerging as a concept in film and society in the 1950s-1960s. Her room is full of posters, she chews gum and has mood swings. With the production design of Lolita's immediate environment (her bedroom, the dances she goes to, etc.) Kubrick aimed at creating an "authentic teen-age atmosphere".46 The director wanted the audience to clearly identify Lolita as a teenager, but also to "admit" that she is ''erotic and desirable"; and he believed that this could be done without causing too many Shockwaves.47 Nabokov's Lolita, on the other hand, is a girl of 12, a pre-teen; and although she has wit and gumption, she is much more child-like than her cinematic incarnation. In narrative terms, the age gap is much more significant in the novel than it is in the film. In his screenplay, Nabokov has Lolita aware of her age, When discussing her friend Mona with Humbert, she says that Mona has boyfriends because she is 16 but that she herself is "a little young".48 No such pronouncements occur in the film. Kubrick's Lolita is not a "nymphet" in Nabokov's sense of the word; she is not a pre-pubescent girl, which makes her fundamentally different from her novelistic pre-carnation. Neither a complicit pre-teen (as Nabokov's Humbert views her) nor an innocent child whose image is clearly distorted in the deviant storyteller's perspective (as Nabokov's reader may be lead to view her) — Kubrick's Lolita is, unambiguously, a character with narrative agency. By bringing Lolita up to the border of legal consent, Kubrick has avoided the most controversial element of Nabokov's story. His knowledge of what might be acceptable to the censors may have played a role in making this choice. We will consider the role of censorship in the second part of this essay, What interests us here, are the narrative implications of this choice. In Kubrick's film Lolita has been re-shaped into a narrative agent and an enigmatic character: she is a seducer rather than (or at least as much as) the seduced, but we never fully grasp the motives behind her actions. She is as much a mystery as Humbert and Quilty. So how does Kubrick construct Lolita's narrative agency? We can make this out through what the director has marked as the "beats" in the story.49 Contextually, the word 'beat' can be defined as a significant point in the narrative which determines (or provides psychological motivation for) the ensuing course of action. A "good beat", in Kubrick's words, occurs, for example, when Humbert clearly has interest in (and is probably 23 5801 Re-Writing Nabokov's Lolita 129 attracted to) these men. The significance of this "beat" is twofold: the narrative drive is located in Lolita's character, her own passions and desires, as much as in that of her male counterparts; and Humbert's awareness of her desire makes him more open to acting upon his own passion. Another "important beat" occurs when Lolita runs back into the house and throws herself into Humbert's arms after learning that she is to be sent to camp: she is being actively physical in her address to Humbert, which lifts his ardour and gives him hope of reciprocation.51 Kubrick's indications of what he considered as narrative "beats" in the story and his script interventions (dialogue re-writes, stage directions, etc.) testify to the process of re-shaping Lolita as a complex character with narrative agency.52 In Kubrick's film she has her own passions and desires and she acts upon them, Kubrick's Lolita actively entices Humbert: she flirts, flutters, teases and tests his affection and attraction. The story does not merely happen to her, she makes it happen.53 She takes active part in both starting and breaking off the relationship with Humbert. As it has already been noted, Kubrick insisted from the very beginning that it should be Lolita who seduces Humbert, and not the other way around.54 Kubrick also insisted that it should be she who breaks from him, and that she was to do it in a "cold and peculiar" way.55 This second comment is yet another indication that Kubrick intended to make Lolita a mystery, as was the case with her male counterparts. His characterisation of her has provided her with womanly sexuality, narrative agency and complexity (and enigma) of her psychological motivation, which far exceeded the image of her as heavily filtered through the perspective of her male counterpart, as was the case in Nabokov's work. Co-Writers: Willingham and Russ Prior to working with Nabokov, Kubrick and Harris had hired Calder Willingham to write the screenplay.66 Willingham had worked with Kubrick on his previous films, Paths of Glory and Spartacus. During the shooting of Sportacus, Willingham was commissioned to write the screenplay for Lolita, the rights to which Harris had acquired before any deal to include Nabokov in the production had taken place. Indeed, Nabokov had turned down the offer to write the script on 12 August 1959.57 Willingham was friends with Nabokov and it was he who had handed Kubrick a copy of the novel and he who subsequently encouraged Nabokov to accept the project.58 It is generally assumed that nothing of Willingham remained in the film, but this is not the case. In Nabokov's draft screenplays there are notes by Kubrick referencing Willingham. If one follows through and looks at the corresponding Willingham passages, in many instances one finds something much closer to the final film. For example, in Nabokov's screenplay, after Charlotte is killed, someone knocks on the door to inform Humbert. In Willingham's screenplay, however, someone phones Humbert, he then shouts for Charlotte and runs out.59 The film has clearly followed Willingham's version. There are other instances where Kubrick had inserted the pieces from Willingham into Nabokov's script. The scene in which Lolita puts her hands over Humbert's eyes and says "Guess who?" is one such instance.60 Though these inserts from Willingham may appear as not overly significant, they testify to the fact that Willingham's work was not wholly abandoned after Nabokov entered the scriptwriting process. Whether Willingham's creative views have influenced the film in some other, more profound ways, is a question that remains to be answered. Contaci sheet shewing Sue Lyon shopping for costumes with one of the wardrufce team. SK/10/2/13 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 130 Re-Writing Nabokov's Lolita 131 Another script collaborator was the author Martin Russ.61 Rather than producing an independent script for Lolita, Russ was involved in re-writing Nabokov's. The majority of his interventions are of comic nature, which indicates that the added playfulness of the film was at least partly due to Russ' work. For example, in a scene in which Humbert and Lolita meet and have their first one-on-one conversation in the Hazes' garden, Russ has them sat on the grass (at Lolita's insistence), with her cracking lines such as: "I'm pretty well behaved-when I'm asleep. But don't mess with me the rest of the time."62 In Russ' additions Lolita is playful, boastful and provocative. Indeed, the whole section — from Humbert meeting Charlotte until Lolita leaves the garden — is very different from Nabokov's screenplays, Russ hints at Lolita's existence before she enters Humbert's (and the viewers') field of vision, setting a scene for her grand entry with a stack of comics, romance magazines and a mention of "Lo". Notes by Russ tell us where his inserts are intended to be and so we can see how they nestled into Nabokov's screenplay.63 Russ' interventions heighten playfulness and humour, but, unlike Kubrick, he retains more of Nabokov's narrative. Frustratingly, the Russ pages are undated. They obviously post-date Nabokov's first draft screenplay, but whether they pre- or post-date Kubrick's own comic interventions is impossible to tell. Whatever the case, Russ was clearly a contributing factor in re-shaping Nabokov's script into a comedy. Nabokov In spite of the involvement of three other scriptwriters — Kubrick, Willingham and Russ — Nabokov has the sole credit for the screenplay. It is likely (though we cannot be certain) that Nabokov's contract named him the sole author. This implies Harris-Kubrick were keen to have Nabokov's name on the project (presumably in order to add validity to the adaptation and perhaps aid its passage with the censors).54 That money may have contributed to Nabokov becoming involved in the project in the first place, is implied by Vera Nabokov, the author's wife, in a letter she wrote to Harris in 1959 65 Previously, Nabokov had met with Harris and Kubrick and explained in person why he didn't want to write the screenplay. However, as Vera wrote in her letter, since their meeting, Nabokov had come to see the "cinematic possibilities" of Lolita. and was willingto take on the project — provided that the money was right and that he was given creative freedom in writing the first draft. As we have already noted, Calder Willingham, who was friends with both Kubrick and Nabokov, may have also had an influence on the latter's change of heart. Laurence Olivier may have also played a part in this, as will be shown later. Kubrick's reply to Vera makes it clear that he and Harris expected involvement in and agreement on the narrative outline prior to the writing of the screenplay 66 There is evidence in the archive that Nabokov was sending Kubrick pages throughout the writing process, with the knowledge that Kubrick may not be satisfied.67 Nabokov's creative freedom in the scriptwriting process was by no means a given, and as Harns-Kubnck owned the rights, they were clear from the beginning that they intended to put their mark on it. Kubrick was unambiguous about this in his letter to Vera Nabokov.68 And he lived up to his word: the findings presented on the previous pages testify to the multiple creative influences (in addition to Nabokov's) which have given shape to the script and the final film. IIB As he was not able to exert as much influence over the film as he would have wished, Nabokov published his version of the script after the film was released. He wrote to Kubrick in 1965 explaining his intention to publish the screenplay, adding that he would give "full credit" to Kubrick for his additions, "some of them admirable".69 Kubrick responded that he was concerned that the publication may infer that "the Director of the film spoiled a work of art".70 The copy of the letter that was eventually sent to Nabokov ceases here, but the draft goes on to explain that "screenplays are never shot in the way they are written", relying as they do on improvisation. Kubrick further added that his apprehension came from potential comparisons of himself with Nabakov by ''literary people".71 One can therefore infer that Harris-Kubrick hired Nabokov and gave him the sole scriptwriting credit in order to stamp the film as sanctioned, or authorised, by the author and thus people could assume that he validated the changing of his work, Hence Kubrick's concern about Nabokov publishing his version of the script: it could be said to, in some way, remove Nabokov's seal of approval for the film.72 Censorship "The censorship thing does not concern me very much", wrote Kubrick in his letter to Ustinov.73 Indeed, there is very little on the topic of censorship present in the Stanley Kubrick Archive. The reason may be that any documents relating to this issue resided with Harris, who, as the producer, was responsible for dealing with the matter, or that Kubrick, indeed, was not very much concerned with it. The works of Leonard Left and Jerold Simmons and Frank Walsh — who have done research in, respectively. Production Code Administration and Catholic Legion of Decency archives — have, however, revealed some interesting facts regarding the impact of censorship on the production of Lolita.74 In 1958, Harris-Kubrick had pitched the film to the Production Code Administration (PCA) and assured them that the film would be a comedy and not a salacious work.75 This perhaps explains Kubrick's lack of apprehension, as he was not expecting the film to be considered salacious. Nonetheless, in 1959, Laurence Olivier, who at the time was cast to play Humbert was to co-produce the screenplay, pulled out of the production because his agent was concerned that "the subject would be reduced to the level of pornography".7$ Olivier wrote to Kubrick suggesting he secured Nabokov to write the screenplay, implying that this would help with the PCA and public reaction to the film.77 Indeed, we know from Vera Nabokov's correspondence with Kubrick that it was around this time that Hams-Kubrick approached Nabokov.73 We also know that Hairis-Kubtick hired Martin Quigley, one of the authors of the Production Code, to steer the film past the PCA and the Legion of Decency and to secure as wide a distribution as possible. Quigley made a series of notes and suggestions to Harris and Kubrick based on a reading of a script. These notes and suggestions were to advise the pair on how the script could be adapted in order to secure PCA approval. The majority of Quigley's suggestions concerned removing double entendres: the final film and Harris' comments on Quigley's suggestions are testament to how Harris-Kubrick took some, but by no means all of Quigley's suggestions as a good many of these remain.79 The reason for this is that they were playing for comedy, not sex, and no doubt thought that viewers would appreciate this fact — indeed, Harris assured Quigley of this as early as December 1959.80 OVERLEAF Publicity photograph of Sue Lyon by Bert Stern. Stern bought the iconic heart shaped eut giassss during the photo shoal, which occurred after principal photography had been completed. SK/1.0/9/7/2 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 134 Re-Writing Nabokov's Lolita 13 The PCA objected to any scenes that implied sexual arousal between Lolita and Humbert, This resulted in the shortening of two shots. In the scene in which Lolifa leans down to Humbert on the camp bed in the Enchanted Huntress Motel, the shot is cut as not to imply she was to land in his crotch and seduce him.81 In the scene showing Humbert making love to Charlotte, a shot is shortened where he is looking at a picture of Lolita, so as not to imply he was arousing himself with the picture.82 These edits don't detract from the meaning of the scenes, the implications are still clear. Indeed, although Quigley had warned them that the seduction scene would earn Lolita a Legion condemnation, Harris-Kubrick were determined to make the film they wanted and they reasoned that other movies had recently passed that were at least as controversial, naming Suddenly Last Summer as an example.93 Quigley was right, though only just. The Legion was torn over whether to pass, place in a special category or condemn Lolita. The man with the deciding vote, Bishop McNulty, sided with condemnation. Seven Arts reacted strongly, claiming that the Bishop was really condemning the notorious novel, and not the film, and all but calling him a hypocrite for letting other controversial films pass. Seven Arts threatened to withdraw the film and release it as an independent art house picture: the condemnation was also open to possible legal challenge from the production company. Further negotiation over the seduction scene, a warning to McNulty that a condemnation might actually boost the film due to increasing its notoriety and some concessions from Seven Arts over distribution and publicity matters saw the film pass under The Legion's special category.84 There were others, too, who objected to the film, as the documents pertaining to discussions with Canon Collins and Christian Action, found in the Kubrick archive, demonstrate.85 Here, however, the tone is one of reasoned argument on both sides. Collins presented his case to the British Board of Film Censors on the basis that any film of the book would be objectionable. They forwarded this to Kubrick "privately" and assured him it wouldn't change their decision.36 It has long been asserted that this lack of official objection to the film was due to contact between the censors and Harris-Kubrick before the filming had started. Eventually, after the film was released, some reviewers did object to the film on moral grounds. Interestingly, however, there were those who objected not because they found the film immoral, but because they considered it too sanitised, A movies strap line asks: "How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?"; to which The New York Times reviewer replies: "They didn't."87 Indeed, they didn't. They made their own Lolita. This perhaps explains why Kubrick, and {in general) the censors were relatively calm given the notoriety of the novel. Kubrick set Lolita as a teenager before the censors intervened and was therefore able to assure them about her age and the moral implications following from it. As it has been demonstrated in this essay, Kubrick raised Lolita's age for the reasons having to do with his aesthetic choices iegarding the film's genre, narrative structure, and character development, and not to satisfy the censors, as some critics have claimed,98 Conclusion In this essay, I have attempted to uncover and understand some of the creative processes which gave shape to Kubrick's cinematic adaptation of Nabokov's literary work. My work did not only serve to demonstrate that the process of filmmaking is one of collective authorship and that Kubrick was as much a creative collaborator as a shaping consciousness. This essay has also demonstrated that understanding the specific roles and perspectives of the multiple creative forces within the framework of the production process can help us better understand the final film and its specific narrative and visual aesthetics. Re-considering Kubrick's film in the terms of a 'tragicomic love stary' (as Kubrick himself had suggested the story was) offers productive new ways of accounting for the adaptation choices pertaining to the film's genre, its narrative structure, and characterisation. Knowing, for example, that the character of Lolita was re-shaped not in order to appease censors, but to develop a "realistic" heroine in a "love story", who is old (and bold!) enough to be a narrative agent, a subject in the story, rather than a mere object of some male's (deviant) lusls —can help us reevaluate the film, both in its own right and in relation to its literary source. Furthermore, looking at the adaptation process in this way, can say something very important about the evaluation of the films based on existing literary works. The existence of two creative outputs resulting from adapting Nabokov's novel for the screen, Kubrick's film and Nabokov's screenplay — which do not only differ from one another, but both significantly differ from the source — testifies to both the interdependence and autonomy of these works. Nabokov saw his screenplay as separate from the novel: "I am sure you will agree that as a play it represented a work of art, in a way almost independent from its source, the book."83 On Kubrick's film, he wrote that it was a "first rate film with magnificent actors", but that "only ragged odds and ends of [his] script had been used", and that it was "as unfaithful to the original script as an American poet's translation from Rimbaud or Pasternak".*0 Are we, indeed, to consider the differences between an adaptation and its source in terms of difference between the media (and cultures) where things get lost in translation? The case of Lolita demonstrates that adaptation is not a matter of translation, but of creation, or rather :co-creation', hence any evaluation of the aesthetic worth of a work and its author(s)' merit will have to take that into consideration. Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 138 "A constructive form of censorship" 139 Stanley Kubrick holds a significant place in the history of film censorship. His reputation as a controversial director is largely based on A Clockwork Orange, 1971, the "ultra-violent" futuristic juvenile delinquency picture which continues to figure as a classic trope and a central point of reference in scholarly literature on censorship and in discussions on the media's influence on crime and violence.' However, many of Kubrick's most critically acclaimed and successful movies ignited heated public debates or ran into problems with censorship boards. Most of Kubrick's work contains a provocative treatment of such sensitive topics as crime, violence, explicit sex, rape, paedophilia, tyranny, and war. Examining the harsh realities of the modern world, Kubrick's feature films address human condition in terms of power, exploitation and violence, often holding no moral position and cultivating a distanced, stylised approach. Kubrick's troubles with the censors peaked for the first time with his 1957 anti-war picture Paths of Glory, which dealt with the less heroic realities of war and military leadership during the First World War. The picture was banned in France, withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival, and censored by the Swiss army, while the American military decided not to screen the movie in its European bases. His next major commercial success, Sportacus, 1960, was heavily attacked by the American Catholic Legion of Decency and other conservative or anti-communist voices, mainly because the historic epic contained a critical anti-establishment subtext of low class rebellion, left-wing leadership and homosexuality. The movie fell victim to cuts imposed by Universal Pictures and by the Production Code Administration (Hollywood's internal censorship system), later followed by more cuts and age restriction measures abroad.2 One of the reasons why Kubrick left the United States of America for making his next movie, Lotita, 1962, was related to his attempts to mitigate censorship troubles and to find more artistic freedom.3 This contribution will focus upon the censorial problems the filmmaker experienced while adapting Vladimir Nabokov's highly-charged novel, but even while working outside the US after the 1960s, when film censorship became more relaxed, Kubrick continued to encounter difficulties. A Clockwork Orange is the prototypical case, of course, but also Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut, 1999, dealing with infidelity and sexual fantasy, is renowned for agonising film critics and bringing the issue of film censorship back under the spotlight. In order to ensure a theatrical 'R' rating (or •restricted') in the US, Kubrick personally made changes in the well-known orgy sequence, while Warner Bros, digitally altered several scenes of explicit sex during post-production 4 In many respects Lolita might be considered an essential movie in the establishment of Kubrick's reputation as a provocative filmmaker, as well as making him aware of the subtleties of censorship. The movie, which has been called Kubrick's most conventional, or least "Kubrickian", picture, underlined the limits imposed to filmmakers who tried to tackle controversial issues within a commercial film industiy communicating with a mass audience.5 The critical and scholarly reception of Lo//fa tended to look at the picture as a curiosity piece within Kubrick's oeuvre, and as a movie beset with so many compromises and concessions due to censorship and other external pressures on the filmmaker, so that he was unable to capture the stylistic complexities, playfulness and erotic tensions which made Nabokov's scandalous novel such an overwhelming artistic experience. This verdict on Lolita as a partly failed project was to some extent supported by Kubrick himself, who on various occasions expressed his disappointment about the movie. In interviews he acknowledged that the "film is susceptible to valid criticism",6 that "it should have had as much erotic weight as the novel",' and even that "Lolita is a major example of how there are great books that don't make great films."3 Interestingly, though, in recent years, critics and scholars are more inclined to reject this hard judgment on the miscarried adaptation and on the negative impact of censorship, especially when compared to Adrian Lyne's more faithful Lolita adaptation in 1997, This reassessment of Kubrick's Lolita persuasively underlined the director's artistic craftsmanship and originality in translating the literary text into a feature film with a recognisable authorial signature. Kubrick's compelling originality was defined in terms of a specific worldview and thematic accents;9 with different tonalities of character development, narrative structure and focalisation;10 or in the inclusion of different ideological subtexts like race.11 Rather than being a curiosity piece, Patrick Webster argues, Lolita was the "first Stanley Kubrick film to begin to depict a greater part of the main concerns of his work" with a preoccupation of a "clearly depicted homosocial discourse, an overt concern with the mechanics of narrative, the idea of the circular journey..., the overt use of Freudian subtexts, ... the subversion of generic expectations, and an overtly slanted sexualised discourse."12 In one of the most cogent analyses of the movie, published in his authoritative On Kubrick, James Naremore brings forward that "Lolita is as artistically impressive as Nabokov's novel."13 Lolita's critical reassessment is interesting, not only for firmly relocating Ihe movie within Kubrick's oeuvre and for the construction of his reputation as a controversial author. It also throws up intriguing questions on the productivity of the interrelation between authorship and censorship, mainly about the space left for film authors to develop their artistic and moral worldview in an environment where external forces tend to limit creative freedom." Rather than looking again at the differences between the novel and the final version of the film, this contribution will concentrate on the creative and other tactics and strategies developed by Kubrick in resistance to, and negotiating with, censors and other disciplining forces in order to safeguard and develop his view upon the original material. One of the interesting aspects of this struggle for artistic freedom in adapting Lolita is that various forces and institutions were active, both in the US and the UK, and that their representatives interacted and communicated in their attempt to influence the Lolita film project. Focussing upon Lolita's cross-national censorship, mainly in the US, the UK and in some other European countries, I will rely upon various kinds of sources, including original archive material, not only from the Stanley Kubrick Archives, but also from the Production Code Administration, the British Board of Film Censorship (now British Board of Film Classification, BBFC) and some other European archives. Struggles in the UK The first traces of Kubrick's Lolita film project go back to 1958, nearly three years after the first publication of Nabokov's novel in France. By that time, Lolita had caused an international scandal given its bouncy exploration of the fantasies of a man with a long-time obsession with young girls, or nymphets. The book tells the story of Humbert Humbert (James Mason), a European literary scholar who moves to New England where he rents a room in the house of Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters). He becomes obsessed with his landlady's 12 year-old daughter, Dolores or Lolita (Sue 140 "' "A constructive form of censorship" 141 Kubrick: New Perspectives roxirnity to Lolita, Humbert marries Charlotte. One day, when Charlotte Lyon). In order to rru ^ wnere he wrote about his distaste for her and his attraction to finds Humbert s pers ■ ^ ^ ^ k(||ed ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ continufls wj(h r-i rir.Hr5 rushes into tne su bci. Lolita, OhariPii adventures with his stepdaughter. One night Lolita disappears, and Humbert's travels an s Lolita, now 17, pregnant and married, asking him i ,/onrs later he receives a only several yedio asks her to ]eave her husbandi Dick] and |jve wjlh u,,mhprt rushes to tina uoiuti, a for money. Hum^ ^ Humbert then leaves to find and kill Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers), the man him, an offer she ec i ^ ^ ^ ^ kidnapped her after following them throughout their travels. Lolita claims to a prntjc phantasies and sexual escapades Df an educated, r- on Nabokov's approach to tne eiu. h le aedophile, the writer had struggled for nearly two years in order to get his white, urban nlae ^ being refused and turned down by several publishers, Lolita was manuscript publis e . Pans-based Olympia Press, a publisher specialised in /■ ii ^rlnlpd in September tyoo cy u^ finally pm'1"-' , fiction. Graham Greene s review and the subsequent ■ . f literary avant-garde anu ^i a mixture or ^ ^ ^ international scandal and an object of censorship.15 controversy in the piess British customs to seize copies entering the UK, while at the end The British Home ^ decldsd to ban the book. ln August i95B QP PutnanVs of 1956 the Frenc ed|(lon of the novel without legal problems. The book became an Sons released the <™ mflQ0 copjes ,„ the firsl three weeks. immediate bestse er.se 115 publication, Kubrick and James B Harris (the producer 1 1958, lust before Loma a ^ r lnJuy , , Tk*x;ilma 1956, and Paths of Glory, 1957, approached Nabokov for ■,1, Unm he had worked on !rte t\uii"y, witnwnorru Nabokov whether he was interested in writing the script for »k film nshts I ney aiou buying tht, inn 5 ^ ^ had n0 exp8rience in scriptwriting, refused.16 After this refusal, the film project, u * ^ novefo) calder Wiliingham, who had collaborated in the writing of Kubrick and Harris con ace^ r, ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Paths of wory a ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ bu) Kubnok was not satisfcd 17 Kubrick. Wiliingham accep ^ ^ ^ ^ MpM,sIS organisation in the meantime kudiick anu H f Immakers to submit their films for approval, often including the supervision of which required ^ ^ dia|ogue, and the final film, eventually leading to the PCA's the treatments, ^,lhr:r|, raised the key question whether Lolita was acceptable under i Parlv September lyoo ftUDi ois seal, cai ' ^ af|j if yes wnai kind of problems could be expected. In a memo, dated II the Prod,K,'°n580p^Aachief Qeoffrey Shurlook referred to Kubrick's call and in this internal note September ^ ^ "suggested that the subject-matter... would probably fall into the area of he reported t ia ^^.^ ^ ^ Code".19 In this first consultation Kubrick and Harris suggested sexperversi , Kanturkv or Tennessee, where such is legal", but Shurlock , .hp ^torv in some state iikc ^nw- y to set tne ^ ^ he jns|sted (hat the -effect might still be offensive". According to the PCA was not convince maintained that they wanted to avoid "any objectionable sex Ch,6f °Tt'Zld bring about another Belay Do//.~ This reference to Ella Kuan's 1956 highly flavour tna ^ ^ based on two plays by Tennessee Williams, is interesting because MrtT«T^oul'red massive difficulties with the PCA before receiving a seal, Followed by Baby Dot n ru (LOD), the powerful American Catholic film organisation a condemnation by Legion of Decency (LU founded ,n .933 m oider .0 combat immoral films. Kubrick and Harris also started trying to get their film project funded as well as looking for a distributor. Their initial attempts to get one of the major film companies, like Columbia or Warner Bros., interested in investing in the movie, proved to be unsuccessful.21 Although Kubrick was ready to capitulate on many fronts, the studios emphasised that given the subject matter (a paedophile's sexual phantasies) it would be difficult to get a PCA seal and the LOD's approval. The studios approached the PCA and in one of these memos from March 1959 Shurlock reported about the producers' proposals to "raise the age of the girl to 15" and to avoid any "suggestion whatever of anything perverted". The PCA man continued that he had warned Kubrick and Harris about the damage that "might be done to the industry".22 In June 1959. Shurlock reconfirmed this tough position by maintaining that the administration "would not approve a picture devoted entirely to the sex problems of a married couple, no matter what their ages".23 Kubrick and Harris continued to work on the project and two years after they had first contacted the PCA, they finally convinced a smaller independent television and film production company, Seven Arts Productions, to finance the movie. Seven Arts also managed to negotiate a distribution contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) 24 Now that they had sound financial backing for the Lolita project Kubrick and Harris turned to Nabokov again and tried to convince him that he should write the screenplay. Nabokov came to Hollywood, and after a series of correspondences and meetings, he accepted the offer. In the summer of 1960 he wrote a 400 page-long script version of his novel, in which he incorporated new ideas and scenes, which had not been in the novel.25 Kubrick, though, clearly had something else in mind. The Nabokov version was not only too lengthy and in Kubrick's opinion "unfilmable", but it was also, as Naremore argues, "formally adventurous, making use of Fellini-esque dream images and other deliberately anti-realistic effects."26 On Kubrick's request Nabokov made a shorter version of his script. Although when the film was released in 1962 the screenplay was formally credited to Nabokov (who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay), Harris and Kubrick completely redrafted Nabokov's script. Witnessing an article, which was published in Sight &, Sound in the winter of 1961, Kubrick admitted that he was not interested in making a faithful adaptation of the novel and that cinema "has to find a style of its own, as it will do if it really grasps the content".27 Next to preserving (some form of) fidelity to Nabokov's original novel, Kubrick and Harris had to rework the script according to some basic stylistic parameters governing mainstream Hollywood cinema in terms of narrative structure, the creation of dramatic suspense, and character identification.28 Kubrick's resistance to literal adaptations also allowed him to incorporate Nabokov's original novel into his artistic and moral views, for instance by incorporating the story firmly within a black comedy register. A final factor they had to take into account, dealt with the problems to be expected from a conservative censorship system. At this stage the script was a compromise between these different constraints, but most of the biggest alterations compared to Nabokov's Lolita, clearly dealt with the warnings already expressed by the PCA. Next to choices in terms of casting, most eminently raising the age of the Lolita character (Kubrick cast Sue Lyon, who looked older than 12), one key strategic decision was to de-emphasise sexuality and to highlight comedy. Instead of explicitly showing what happens physically between Humbert and Lolita, the script envisaged to invest more on the ambiguity of innocent touches and on amplifying Lolita's innocence.29 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 142 A constructive form of censorship" 143 Struggles in the US and the UK By that time, for reasons of tax advantages and creative freedom, Kubrick and Harris had crossed the ocean to re-write the script and make the movie at Elstree in the UK,30 The news about Kubrick and Harris deciding to switch the filming of Lolita from Hollywood to Britain was announced by September 1960. British newspapers stated that Kubrick had decided to leave the US because the project had been under fire there from those who thought that the film should not be made. Kubrick had been warned, the Daily Express wrote, that "however carefully it is handled it will not get the Hollywood Seal—the American censor's OK".31 But now another censor came to the fore. Early November 1960 the press announced that Kubrick and Harris approached the BBFC, the British non-governmental organisation responsible for censoring films. They got in touch with the BBFC's Secretary John Trevelyan in order to discuss the script. Arguing that they were making Lolita "here because it is being financed in Britain", Kubrick said "whether we make any changes in the script depends on what he [Trevelyan] says".32 The problems Kubrick encountered in Britain started that same month when the Lolita script was read in great detail by a handful of BBFC examiners. In one of the first internal reports about the script, one examiner argued, "I don't think we could encourage exhibition of that sort of middle-aged strip-tease,"33 Other examiners described the script as "thoroughly contemptible" and a "worst sort of botched up pastiche that could be imagined."3* On 24 November 1960, Trevelyan, Kubrick and Harris met, and they discussed the script during a meeting, which apparently lasted for two hours. Starting off by claiming thai he was bound to find the central theme distasteful, the BBFC's Secretary expressed his fear about the movie's dangers "both to teenage girls and to certain older men". In a detailed discussion he indicated the problems, which had to be solved. If not, Trevelyan argued, "there was a definite possibility that we would not be able to issue a certificate for the film." At the end of the meeting Kubrick concluded that all he could do was to go ahead with the present plans, wanting to complete the movie "in an acceptable way... avoiding certain details".35 After this meeting the BBFC staff started listing the problems they encountered with the Lolita project. In a five page long letter dated 7 December 1960, Trevelyan summarised these remarks and he repeated his many objections and concerns in a long list of detailed observations on the script. These included worries about the use of particular words like "erector", "impotence" and "incest", or sentences, mainly those with a sexual emphasis (e.g., the line "If I touch you I go limp as a noodle"). More generally, Trevelyan argued that the key problem with the Lolita script was that it differed from the novel by combining humour and bad taste: "I cannot help feeling", he wrote, "that there are many things in this script which are in bad taste, and that bad taste will be accentuated by comedy treatment." 36 The letter is interesting because Trevelyan also defined his view upon the BBFC's role as an institution encouraging pre-production consultation rather than top-down, post-production censorship. Trevelyan's strategy resided in trying to gel to know filmmakers personally and to convince them that the BBFC wanted to help film projects and not give them problems. This view upon a "constructive form of censorship" included the negotiation on the movie's structure and on very precise details. In the case of Lolita, "1 was a bit nervous", Trevelyan later wrote in his memoirs, since Nabokov's book had been regarded as "sensational and daring".37 One week later, on 14 December 1960, Trevelyan contacted his colleague at the PCA with a letter marked "PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL". Enclosed within was a copy of the letter he had sent to Kubrick. The BBFC and the PCA regularly exchanged information, especially on movies and scripts, which might cause trouble in both markets. In this letter the BBFC Secretary repeated that he had taken a rather strong line with Kubrick, and thai what worried him most was Kubrick's intention to make his movie as a comedy and not as a tragedy. Only in this case, he said, "we might possibly get it into the 'X' category" (or suitable for those aged 16 and older).38 Hoping to be able to discuss the Lolita film project with Shurlock, Trevelyan argued that he wanted to cover the BBFC in the event of refusing a certificate when the film was completed, what might "create a major press sensation" and "of course the intellectuals would tear us apart". In his answer to Trevelyan, dated 10 January 1961, Shurlock reaffirmed that the PCA did not receive a script, but he reminded his colleague that over two years ago the administration had given negative advice.38 Meanwhile Kubrick and Harris tried to pave the way by contacting a man whose connections had to guide Lolita through the Hollywood Production Code machinery. This man was Martin J Quigley, Screenshot of Lolita (Suo Lyon) sunbathing in the garden. "A constructive form of censorship" 145 TO: A.A. PRODUCTIONS LTD. INTER-OFFICE COMMUNICATION FROM : James B, Harris DATE : December 6, I960. Stanley Kubrick 1«, Page 85 SYNOPSIS - QUIGMC'S SUGGESTIONS _Page 83 to end Objection to Swine's speech about three ladies in bed, one disguised as a man*. 2» Pag® 85 - Thinks w@ are insulting police unnecessarily. (We oan defend this very easily by explaining potential danger to Humbert with police present - not an insult). 3. Page 36 - Objection to Lolita's speech - the word is "incest". Suggests using word "adultery"« (I believe he is right recommending making this change). l Pas- 87« - Objection to entire business with pills. Suggests we 4* ^ ' re-write to avoid implication of use of an aphrodisiac. (It's possible he missed insert of vitainin pill which is on preceding page. Even so he may be right.; k Pace 92. - Scenes 81E & 81*. Suggests we are very careful how we play this« He is worried that Humbert may appear like a beast and disgust audience* (Perhaps our description of Humbert pacing back and forth gave him this idea. However, he only suggests our being careful? which of course we will). the prominent Catholic editor and publisher of the Chicago-based motion picture trade periodical Motion Picture Herald. Quigley had played a key role in the drafting of the Production Code and continued to cooperate with the PCA. He had also been active behind the scenes of the Legion, but towards the 1950s, there began to be a conflict of interest, and the Legion eventually dissociated itself from him. Working as a consultant to independent film producers, Quigley was also asked by Harris, Kubrick and Seven Arts to secure a PCA seal and to get the Legion's blessings.40 Acting as a monitor and a go-between, Quigley started to work on the troublesome Lolita film project, making very detailed suggestions on nearly every page of the script. It is interesting to notice how James Harris handed over Quigley's remarks to Kubrick, interpreting the boundaries of how far the filmmaker should follow this in filming Lolita. In a memo, dated 6 December 1960, for instance, Harris reproduced Quigley's suggestions, followed by his interpretations between brackets. Commenting on the use of the words "incest" and "adultery" by Lolita, Harris argued that he believed Quigley "is right recommending making this change", and Kubrick seems to have followed this and other advice while shooting the film, Other suggestions, though, were met by a more combatant Harris, who suggested Kubrick not ■ follow the advice and to fight for it41 Commenting on Quigley's objection to cut a discussion between Humbert and Lolita on virgin wool, Harris wrote in his memo: "this stuff is too good to go, let's fight for it", adding victoriously that Quigley had "included the gag about the marine."42 Quigley also started to negotiate with the head of the PCA.43 In a letter to Quigley, dated 20 January 1961, Shurlock referred to a telephone call they had, and he repeated that the PCA believed that the "basic story is approvable under the Code provided the girl... as being not less than 15 years old", because "if she comes through as a child, we would make reservations." Next to some objectionable lines and words (for instance "bastard"), as well as some "dirty jokes", the only important scene, Shurlock argued, "that we find unapprovable is the seduction scene,"44 Informing Shurlock that "only about 40 per cent (of the movie) had been photographed", Quigley responded that a "considerable number of dialogue lines... have been eliminated."45 The PCA's rather positive reaction to the script was met with great relief, and Harris repeated that Kubrick had never had the intention to "commercialise on the sensationalism of Nabokov's novel". In a letter to Quigley, Harris and Kubrick continued to negotiate on specific recommendations, adding that, from their part, "it would be silly to dogmatically argue these points, as the film can obviously be as good as we feel it can be. without including some of the questionable points".46 However, attached to this letter, dated 30 January 1961, Quigley (and Shurlock) found a three-page long list of recommendations and answers with references to how Kubrick had shot (or was going to shoot) the scene. These included revisions in dialogues and words (e.g., the cutting of words like "hell" and "bastard", or the line "I have to nurse my impotence7'), but they also touched more fundamental creative choices. A crucial one dealt with Lolita's age, where Kubrick and Harris argued that "it is of unanimous opinion by all who have seen the rushes, that the appearance of Lolita could not be construed, in any way, as childlike and by no means in the widest stretch of the imagination below the age of 15". Lolita's age was not really mentioned, Kubrick and Harris argued, but several instances in the film are included in order to convince the audience that Lolita is over 15, like for instance "her attending a high school dance and her association with other teenagers".47 Kubrick, who at this stage was already filming Loiita, claimed to take (or had taken) care of how he GontcU • . The first page of James B Harris' not on the script iihangas suggested by Martin Quigley. SK/10/3/8/1 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 146 "A constructive form of censorship" 147 dealt with issues like crime and violence (e.g., "The sequence involving the shooting of Quilty will be handled in a tasteful and artistic way. It will not be excessively brutal"); dress codes ("We will avoid any criticisms by having Lolita wear a heavy flannel, long sleeves, high-necked, full-length nightgown and Humbert not only in pyjamas, but bathrobe as well"); and dialogues in relation to the connection between Humbert and Lolita. In his detailed response to Quigley and Shurlock, Kubrick concluded that the whole point here was to come to a compromise in not glamourising the whole relationship and to maintain that "the entire story porfray an unglamorous and tragic result", while at the same time giving "more freedom in Humbert's last speech... without glamourising, but on the other hand, without destroying an important summary of Humbert's final thoughts".43 Similar creative tactics (on details like words, dialogues, or dress codes) and strategies (on the more important issues like the portrayal of characters, relationships, or overall tone) were developed with respect to the BBFC. Kubrick's answer to the BBFC's objections included a game of giving and taking. At various occasions the film director tried to assure Trevelyan that he took the BBFC Secretary's worries about the erotic, sexual and vulgar tone seriously (e.g., "This will be done with taste and discretion", "We will see that this is done without sexual tone", "We have no intention of trying to create an erotic mood out of this scene"), and that he was keen on producing a "tasteful and artistic" film. Arguing that he wanted to co-operate fully with the BBFC, though, Kubrick criticised the board for the "unfortunate conclusion as to whether (the film/script) is a cheap farce".49 In his reply Trevelyan now apologised for having referred to cheap laughs and vulgarity, and he admitted, "your record and the standing of your artists, makes this a completely unfair comment". Trevelyan also admitted that his views about the project were unjustified because of the sensational publicity, which has been attached to the novel, ''since the most responsible film will suffer from a backlash of this".50 Struggles in the US, the UK and elsewhere This quite radical change in attitude in calling the film project "responsible" and in referring to Kubrick's artistic record, was clearly inspired by the fact that Kubrick's Spartacus had been released with great commercial success in the US (in October), the UK (December 1960), and in other film markets in Europe and elsewhere. Lolita's struggle for a PCA seal continued till the end of August 1961 (when the first version of the movie was shown) with several rounds of consultations and negotiations between Shurlock, Quigley, Kubrick and Harris. The MPAA's agency kept having difficulties with particular parts of the dialogue or scenes like the seduction scene which was seen as "sex suggestive" and had to be shortened;51 and where Lolita whispers the line "This is how we start" in Humbert's ears, what could be interpreted as "obscene".52 Here Shurlock wanted a fadeout instead of suggestive dialogue after Lolita whispers in Humbert's ear, and Kubrick agreed.53 On 3t August, Lolita: was given the PCA seal (the historical certificate nr. 20000), after which the producers could start finalising the movie and preparing its release.54 Meanwhile, Shurlock informed his BBFC colleague about the PCA's approval, and he now even tended to defend Kubrick's Lolita. Agreeing "that the picture is going to be thoroughly disliked by a lot of people, but for its subject-matter and not for its treatment", Shurlock +h0 mm/B should not cause serious problems in the UK,55 Trevelyan, though, was not wi5 r ^ -. éfl because the BBFC had already been asked to refuse the film in March 1961, when an influential religious group, Catholic Action, put pressure on the censorship board. Next to starting a national press campaign 56 the group submitted a case against granting Lolita a certificate permitting its public exhibition.57 In their campaign the representatives of the Catholic Action referred to various events, including the sensationalist publicity around the paperback version of Nabokov's book (said to appear in November 1961). the major public event around the Lady Chatterley's Lover affair and the new publication of DH Lawrence's controversial novel in I960, and press reports on a glowing wave of rape and sex crimes against children in Britain, young girls in particular. Chairman Reverent Canon John Collins, who was a driving force in trying to create a moral panic, saw Lolita as a "provocation of rape and murder".58 He also expressed his concerns to Stanley Kubrick. In this correspondence between Kubrick and Collins, which comprises several letters over the period of March and May,59 it is remarkable how calm, reserved and, at some points, how laconic Kubrick was in trying to cairn down and dismantle Canon Collins' arguments. Besides registering a "certain degree of surprise at your willingness to pre-judge a motion picture... before you see it", the filmmaker reassured Collins ibrick: New Perspectives 148 ■'A constructive form of censorship" 149 that he would not find the motion picture in any way "deleterious to the morals of any segment of society".60 The Catholic Action's campaign failed, at least in banning Loiita, when the BBFC granted the movie an 'X' certificate on 11 September 1961. Expressing his appreciation of Kubrick's "cooperation with the Board in the making of this picture", Trevelyan repeated that the director had taken into account "many oF the points that I raised with you after reading the script".61 One month before the British release in September 1962 Trevelyan was asked by local police forces to give his opinion on possible troubles with Loiila; he now defended the movie by underlining that Lo/ita "has only a slight resemblance to the book".62 Also, in the US Loiita encountered problems with Catholic pressure groups, in particular the LOD. The movie was screened three times before Legion representatives, first in September 1961 and a second one in October. Considering the film to be "tasteless" and exposing "moral corruption", Legion classifiers criticised Lolita's "undercurrent of prurient morbidity". The filmmakers and the producers started to negotiate again with Legion reviewers, especially on the seduction scene. In January 1962 a third viewing took place, and now the seduction scene was cut, according to Gregory Black, "further than Shurlock had suggested"63 The scene was reduced to a minimum, ending with a fade-out just after Lolita's whispering in her stepfather's ear. Seven Arts and MGM also agreed with the Legion to release the movie with the caption "For persons over 18 years."64 The LOD now relented and at the end of April 1962, some six weeks before Lolita's release in New York, the Legion decided to put the movie in a separate classification (together with Fellim's La Dolce Vita, 1960) rather than condemning it. This special classification was given to films, which, "while not morally offensive in themselves, require caution and some analysis and explanation as a protection to the uninformed". The LOD acknowledged that Loiita had been sufficiently modified in its screen adaptation and that the "producer and distributor have attempted to fulfil their social responsibility to the general public"'.65 Although the movie continued to be controversial in some Catholic circles, it was clear that Kubrick had gone far to obtain the PCA's and LOD's approval. At the occasion of Lolita's much-publicised release in June 1962, Variety wrote that "Vladimir Nabokov's witty, grotesque novel is, in its film version, like a bee from which the stinger has been removed", and also that "the novel has been stripped of its pubescsnt heroine arid mosi of its lively syntax, graphic honesty and sharp observations on people and places in a land abundant with cliches."66 Kubrick's censorship problems in the US and the UK were a recurrent item in film reviews at the occasion of Lolita's European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in June 1962 and also two months later when the movie was a big event during the Venice Film Festival.67 The German newspaper Die Welt titled its review "Loiita is no longer a nymphet" ("Loiita isf kein Nymphchen mehr"),6S while the French centre-right journal L'Aurore reported that Loiita had become completely inoffensive.69 When Loiita was presented to European censorship boards, Kubrick's movie did not encounter major difficulties. Although the movie mostly received harsh age restrictions, few cuts and other severe measures were taken to hinder its distribution and exhibition. In December 1961, the German self-regulatory film rating body FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolie der Filmwirtschaft) examined the movie, and rated it '18', and some advertisements were forbidden (for instance one underlining the love affair between "a mature man and a precocious 12 year-old girl").70 in the following months Kubrick's Loiita was released in other European countries, mostly reserved to mature adolescents and to adults, and released without cuts imposed by the censorship hoards. In Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, for example, Loiita was forbidden for youngsters under 16 years.71 in Ireland the movie was released with an 'Over 18s' certificate in May 1963, a certificate issued only after a dozen of cuts. The scene where Humbert attempts to get into Lolita's bed was cut entirely, as well as a whole series of sentences because, as the censors reported, they didn't want "no double talk, neck-kissing, etc.".72 In Ireland and many other European countries, Catholic film organisations had a classification board, operating for Catholic cinemas and informing Catholic newspapers and film trade magazines about their moral evaluation of movies. These Catholic film leagues, which were united under the ' Vatican protected OCIC (International Catholic Organisation for Cinema), were more severe than the official film boards. Most of these film classifiers put Loiita in the second highest category. Germany and France, for instance, delivered the 'Inadvisable' label ("abzuraten", "a deconseiller").12 Conclusion Rather than examining the differences between Nabokov's novel and Kubrick's film, this chapter looked at the tactics and strategies developed bv the filmmaker, his producer and the production company in order to negotiate with censors and other disciplining forces. At nearly every stage of the Loiita film project, Kubrick had to negotiate with different kinds of forces in order to watch over his authorial integrity, or to protect his artistic and moral view upon the original novel. These struggles included different kinds of negotiations with Nabokov, with Seven Arts and MGM, and most prominently first with censorship boards on both sides of the ocean, as well as with religious pressure groups and their go-betweens and consultants. The complexity of Lolita's censorship resides in the fact that the process of censoring and disciplining on the one hand, and Kubrick's strategies and tactics to preserve his view on the other hand, had an international and cross-institutional dimension. In setting up his project, Kubrick not only had to consult with the BBFC and their American counterparts, but he also had to have the approval of religious organisations, There is no doubt that Kubrick and Harris would have made a different picture if there had been no external, institutionalised forms of censorship. The impact of these forces is evident on nearly every level of the film art, including the elaboration of the story line, very concrete actions, on character development, casting, the use (and absence) of very particular words and expressions, or on themes, as well as how very concrete scenes are filmed and edited.74 Besides very concrete acts of negotiation, giving and taking on those levels (tactics), and in trying to watch over the major tone of the movie (strategies), Kubrick's approach also included an attempt to personally engage with the censors and campaigners (e.g., letters to Canon Collins). This approach coincided with strategies recently promoted by the censors themselves, in this case by Trevelyan and Shurlock, both of them being of a more liberal persuasion than their predecessors at the BBFC (ATL Watkins) and the PCA (Joseph Breen), The end of the 1950s and early 1960s was a crucial period in this struggle over filmmakers' artistic autonomy vis-a-vis the influence some institutions tried to preserve over the film medium. In this sense, Loiita surely is one of those key movies, which tested the boundaries of what censors were accepting to be screened in public cinemas. Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 152 Reconstructing Strangelove 153 Director-producer and co-writer Stanley Kubrick faced a range of creative opportunities and artistic.challenges in the editing of his comedy masterpiece Dr. Strangelove or. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964. Over the years a number of myths concerning the production of the film have circulated, stories that only a forensic analysis of Kubrick's production files can comprehensively evaluate. Amongst these claims is the degree to which Peter Sellers ad-libbed his lines, with the belief that he created significant amounts of new dialogue. For example, 'Continuity girl' Pam Carlton says that apart from delivering the first scripted line the actor ad-libbed the rest of his dialogue during the two Hot Line phone calls with the Soviet Premier.1 Interviews with several production associates and crew-members, who were present on set, have related that Kubrick shot endless takes. Kubrick biographer Vincent LoBrutto gives credence to the ad-lib contributions, while John Baxter claims erroneously that Kubrick "always used at least three" cameras for any Sellers scene in order to capture the range of his improvisations.2 Daily continuity reports show that only two cameras at any given time were trained on Sellers, and then only those in the War Room sequences. On a rare occasion three cameras were used to simultaneously cover the now deleted pie-fight scenes.3 In reality, Kubrick always acknowledged the contribution of actors to his scripts.4 In relation to Dr. Strangelove Kubrick is quoted by Gene D Phillips as saying: "Some of the best dialogue was created by Sellers himself."5 However, such comments have been later misconstrued; this does not mean that a lot of dialogue was created, only "some of the best",6 The Strangelove Outtakes The following scenes, as recorded in the daily continuity reports, were originally scripted, rehearsed and then filmed, usually with multiple takes and in some instances multiple camera angles, from late January to mid-May 1963. As was standard industry practice, only key takes were printed. Fluffed dialogue lines, camera mechanical failure or other technical glitches, alongside the qualitative appraisal of the acting by the director, dictated which takes were ordered for printing. Although there are exceptions, usually only a single take (rarely two) would be chosen from the half a dozen or so that were usually filmed, on average, per scene. These printed (out)takes — revealed here for the first time — were included in the initial rough edit assembly of sequences, but ultimately failed to make it into Kubrick's final release print. As editor Tony Harvey has related, the chronological sequencing of the script when translated onto film was in many ways "a mess" and sometimes appeared disorienting or illogical: "sometimes what you put on film doesn't always gel".7 The first assembly edit ran the risk that the audience would be lost if it was constructed literally as written. Furthermore, Harvey recounts, "I remember we ran the first cut and we were both enormously depressed... it had no tension, no excitement and something was deeply missing from it". As with Kubrick's earlier film The Killing, the editing strategy of cross-cutting was once again employed but this time the narrative progression was linear and chronological, rather than The Killing's selective repetition of the same action shown from different perspectives. Early in the edit Kubrick and Harvey set about rearranging the sequences to make better sense of the chronology, action and characters. Harvey recalls that after the last day of shooting, he and Kubrick were devastated by their first cut: "It didn't really work very well and I remember Stanley did this brilliant thing of cutting up the script, DAILY CONTINUITY REPORT Caption s^^UQ^Wä Dare £5,3.63 CM»t« D,rect0f S. r.ubrick Cameraman G. (Taylor Int, War Room d^jc Time Started CAMERA SET UP Script Number A BSC 515 IbSL'l. 40' 1 74 H Time Finished C Slate Number D 208 Tnke 1 2 3 4 5 & 7 8 9 10 Print Hold 1 tijG -start Film ro&taae 5 ) ACTION AND DIALOGUE:— höhl ■J CIA-'- L ilE a In o n st" t z o c9 b n cr It c "b i,f r n* t J o iL n n it.'- rlt It 11 ■> k t iitB and everything was put on cards on an enormous board, and we reconstituted the whole thing and started from scratch."8 Regardless of the editing process, the reasons for abandoning the array of scenes described here may vary considerably. Accordingly, some decisions are suggestive and entirely speculative, though mostly deductive. Some are consistent with what is already on the public record, while others contradict a number of assertions that continue to fuel the mythology around Strangeiove's production. Hence, this essay draws from a range of primary sources—daily continuity reports, multiple script versions, set design and production stills, and key interviews—to reconstitute filmed sequences that failed to make the final cut. Despite some of the intrinsic problems with reconstructing the sequencing (e.g. chronologies of scenes, takes and dates) they are arranged here according to alphanumeric script numbering, location and narrative sequencing as best can be deduced in relation to the final release print.9 Due to the limitations of space the famous, penultimate Strangelove ending—the pie-fight scene—that was shot, edited and ultimately rejected, cannot be covered here.10 The War Room (The Pentagon) Scenes 30R, 32, 34 and 38 In several early takes the US President is portrayed suffering from a cold. Although these scenes were later re-edited to remove the portrayal of a sickly Commander-in-Chief, in some scenes and in production stills the inhalers are evident, as is Muffley shuffling a handkerchief up his sleeve. PREVIOUS PAGE Speuial Effects Supervisor Wally Veevers (boLlom right of the photograph) looks up to a model B-h? bomber as it is set up to be shot for Dr. Strangelove. SK/11/10/1/3 ABOVE Daily continuity report for the filming of Dr. Strangelove in the War Room sel, 25 March 1963. SK/11/3/4 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 154 Reconstructing Strangelove 155 In Scene 30R, filmed in medium-shot across the War Room table, the President rises into frame and is then seated between aides Staines and Frank, President Muff ley then reaches for a large inhaler with his left hand.11 Holding the inhaler up to his nose, coughing, the President says: "Good morning gentlemen. Please sit down," As they sit Muffley places the inhaler down next to him. The President asks Staines if everyone is present. As the aide describes who is missing, Muffley takes out a handkerchief and blows his nose, replacing it in his left sleeve. An unapologetic and contrarian General Turgidson flexes his hawkish credentials before the President. At the War Room table standing next to Muffley, who holds inhalers in both hands, Turgidson leans forward, towering over his direct superior and patronisingly asserts his authority.12 General Turgidson: All the contingencies are being considered and you can rest assured that the departments concerned are on top of this. Now we all understand what a terrible strain you've been under, particularly just being rousted out of a sickbed. And if I may suggest Sir, we're all on the same side here. We are all trying to accomplish the same thing, and why don't you have a little confidence and let us pros handle it. (The President puts the large inhaler down on the table.) President Muffley: Now look here General Turgidson, I want one thing understood and understood very clearly. I am running this — I am running this to the end. It is my right, my responsibility and anyone here who feels that his professional talents are not receiving the recognition they deserve is at liberty to... to hand in his resignation which will be instantly accepted. (Turgidson stands upright, at attention.) Turgidson: Mister President, we're all here to help you sir, and you may rest assured that there was no offence meant by that remark. Muffley: Alright, I'll accept that. Now... now let us... let us all sit down. In the following scene Staines and the President are shot in close-up across the War Room table.13 After General Faceman brushes aside General Turgidson's concerns over casualties from any attack by Army Rangers against the Air Force base, Staines asks: "Mister President, What do you think about civil defence? Shall we let the matter mature for a bit, sir?" Muffley has an inhaler shoved up a nostril, replying: "Yes, yes. 1 think that's the best thing to do, yes." The conclusion of the relevant daily continuity report notes on the various takes that were printed; "Match on President with inhalers and position of hands — OK'd by director. This scene was also covered by slates 95 and 97 but takes on these slates are being held. Different performance by Mr Sellers".14 Obtaining a range of takes, often from differing angles and set ups, enabled Kubrick to cut around the eccentricities of Sellers' performances. Production designer Ken Adam recalls: "the whole stage at Shepperton was in tears because Peter played it so he was suffering from asthma and a very bad cold. So he asked for an inhaler and the whole two days we shot, he played it with this inhaler and his terrible cold and it was hilariously Production still o( General Buck Turgidson (George C Scott) leaning over President Merkin Muffley {Peter Sellers). In front of the President can be seen two of his inhalers, large and smaii. SK/11/1.0/4/1 Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives 156 funny,"15 Because of the reorienting of Sellers' portrayal of the President, away from being sickly, these scenes were removed. Burpelson Air Force Base (Interior General Ripper's Office) Scene 34k Group Captain Mandrake and General Jack D Ripper are inside the General's office. Mandrake is framed in close shot at a small office bar, walking past bookshelves, holding a glass in each hand.16 Mandrake: You know Jack I'd be very interested to know why you've done this? (He then turns to pour.) General Ripper: Because I thought it was proper. Why else do you think I would do it? I've given it a great deal of thought, Mandrake. Don't think I haven't. Mandrake; I'm sure you have sir. Apparently you're right out of rainwater (holds up bottle). Will distilled be alright? Ripper: That'll be fine. Mandrake: Good. Ripper: We've come a long way since Pearl Harbor and all the lessons we've learned are in Plan R. Mandrake: I'm sure they are sir. Ripper: You're damned right they are. Mandrake: Would you care for some ice? Ripper: No, I like it at body temperature. This deleted exchange shows the incongruity of Mandrake's civil decorum at a time when the British officer desperately needs information, alongside his delicate discursive dance around a murderous psychotic — a madman whom the Group Captain is attempting to loosen-up by plying him with alcohol. Furthermore, Ripper's exposition concerning Pearl Harbor may espouse an understandable strategic rationale. The remark resonates with the option, later expressed by General Turgidson as an act of nuclear pre-emption, that the Americans should catch the Russians "with their pants down". It is ironic, however, that Turgidson is the one caught literally with his pants down. The news of Ripper's attack against the Soviets is relayed to him hy his secretary. Miss Scott, while he is sitting on a hotel room toilet. Kubriok prepares a shot in Ihe hotel room sei. Trany Reed's stand-in lies on Ihe bed with the telephone. To Kubrick's right are Kelvin Pike and Bermc Ford from the camera department. Reflected in the mirrcr is Stuart Freeborn (make-up) and in. the foreground Pamela CaHion (continuity). SK/11/10/1/1 «fert«t>